ljll/g8/81   {) 


bV  42ii  .87 

Stalker,  James,  1848-1927. 

The  preacher  and  his  model 


THE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS 


THE  YALE  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING,  1 


[f;  2^/28^, 


c 


1 


REV.  JAMES  STALKER,  D.D,    ,      ..:  Scll'-'^^- 


AUTHOR    OF 


Imago  Christi,"  "  1  he  Life  of  Jesus  Christ,"  "The  Life  ok 
St.  Paul,"  etc. 


Quis yacit  ut  quid  oportet  et  qucmadmodtiin  oportct  dicatur 
nisi  in  Cuj'iis  tnanti  sunt  nos  et  nostri  sermones  ? 

St.  Augustine,  De  Doctrina  Christiana^  iv.  15 


|[fb  iorh: 

A.  C.  ARMSTRONG  AND  SON, 

51  E.  xoTH  St.,  near  Broadway. 

1891. 


Copyright,  1891, 

BY 

A.  C.  ARMSTRONG  &  SON. 


TO    THE 


Divinity  School  of  Yale  University,  ) 
New  Haven,  Conn.,  April  25,  1891.      ) 


REV.  JAMES  STALKER.  D.D., 

GLASGOW,    SCOTLAND. 

Rev.  and  Dear  Sir: 

At  the  close  of  your  instructive  and  stimulating  lectures  in 
the  Lyman  Beecher  Course  before  the  members  of  this  Theological 
School,  we  desire  to  express  to  you  the  satisfaction  with  which  they 
have  been  listened  to,  and  we  are  glad  to  know  that,  by  their  publi- 
cation in  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  the  pleasure  and 
profit  which  we  have  all  derived  from  their  delivery  will  be  enjoyed 
by  a  voider  circle. 

Timothy  Dwight,  President. 

George  E.  Day,  Professor  of  Hebrew. 

Samuel  Harris, 

Professor  of  Systematic  Theology. 

George  P.  Fisher, 

Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History. 

Lewis  O.  Brastow, 

Professor  of  Practical  Theology. 

George  B.  Stevens, 

Professor  of  ATeiv  Testament  Criticism 
and  Interpretation. 

Frank  C.  Porter, 

Instructor  in  Biblical  Theology. 


PREFACE. 

THESE  nine  Lectures  on  Preaching  were  de- 
livered, on  the  Lyman  Beecher  Foundation,- 
to  the  divinity  students  of  Yale  University  in  the 
spring  of  this  year.  With  the  kind  concurrence  of 
the  Senate  of  Yale,  five  of  them  were  redelivered, 
on  the  Merrick  Foundation,  to  the  students  of 
Ohio  Wesleyan  University  at  Delaware,  Ohio. 

In  the  Appendix  an  Ordination  Address  is  re- 
produced, which  I  wrote  when  I  had  been  only 
four  or  five  years  in  the  ministry,  and  which  I  have 
been  requested  to  reprint.  My  friend,  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Walker,  who  was  present  when  it  was  deliv- 
ered, having  published  it  in  The  Family  Treasury, 
another  friend,  noticing  it  there,  had  it  printed  as  a 
pamphlet  at  his  own  expense  and  distributed  to  all 
the  ministers  of  the  Church  to  which  he  and  I  be- 
long. It  was  a  very  characteristic  act ;  and  I  have 
ventured,  as  a  memorial  of  it,  to  dedicate  this  vol- 
ume to  him.     I  do  so,  however,  not  for  this  reason 


PREFACE. 


only,  but  also  because  there  has  been  no  one  in  this 
generation  who  has  done  more  than  he  has  done, 
by  the  example  of  his  own  impressive  ministry  and 
by  his  generous  encouragement  of  younger  minis- 
ters, to  promote  the  interests  of  preaching  in  his 
native  land. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  the  Rev.  Charles  Shaw, 
who  on  this  as  on  former  occasions  has  kindly  as- 
sisted me  in  correcting  the  press. 

Glasgow,  October  \st,  1891. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE   I. 

PAGE 

Introductory i 


LECTURE    IL 
The  Preacher  as  a  Man  of  God 29 

LECTURE    in. 
The  Preacher  as  a  Patriot 59 

LECTURE    IV. 
The  Preacher  as  a  Man  of  the  Word 91 

LECTURE   V. 
The  Preacher  as  a  False  Prophet 125 

LECTURE   VI. 
The  Preacher  as  a  Man 149 

LECTURE   VII. 
The  Preacher  as  a  Christian i79 


xii  CO /V  TENTS. 


LECTURE    VIII. 

PAGE 

The  Preacher  as  an  Apostle 205 


LECTURE    IX. 
The  Preacher  as  a  Thinker 237 

APPENDIX. 
An  Ordination  Charge , 265 


LECTURE   I. 
NTRODUCTORY 


LFXTURE    I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

GENTLEMEN,  it  would  be  impossible  to  begin 
this  course  of  lectures  without  expressing  my 
acknowledgments  to  the  Theological  Faculty  of  this 
University  for  the  great  honour  they  have  done  me 
by  inviting  me  to  occupy  this  position.  When  I  look 
over  the  list  of  my  predecessors  and  observe  that  it 
includes  such  names  as  Bishop  Simpson,  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  Dr.  John  Hall,  Dr.  W.  M.  Taylor, 
Dr.  Phillips  Brooks,  Dr.  A.  J.  F.  Behrends,  and  Dr. 
Dale — to  mention  only  those  with  which  it  opens — - 
I  cannot  help  feeling  that  it  is  perhaps  a  greater 
honour  than  I  was  entitled  to  accept ;  and  I  can- 
not but  wish  that  the  preaching  of  the  old  country 
were  to  be  represented  on  this  occasion  by  some 
one  of  the  many  ministers  who  would  have  been 
abler  than  I  to  do  it  justice.  It  is  with  no  sense  of 
having  attained  that  I  am  to  speak  to  you  ;  for  I 
always  seem  to  myself  to  be  only  beginning  to  learn 
my  trade  ;  and  the  furthest  I  ever  get  in  the  way  of 
confidence  is  to  believe  that  I  shall  preach  well  next 
time.     However,  there  may  be  some  advantages  in 


i^ 


4  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

hearing  one  who  is  not  too  for  away  from  the  diffi- 
culties with  which  you  will  soon  be  contending 
yourselves  ;  and  the  keenness  with  which  I  have  felt 
these  difficulties  may  have  made  me  reflect,  more 
than  others  to  whom  the  path  of  excellence  has  been 
easier,  on  the  means  of  overcoming  them. 

I  warmly  reciprocate  the  sentiments  which  have 
led  the  Faculty  to  come  across  the  Atlantic  the 
second  time  for  a  lecturer,  and  the  liberality  of 
mind  with  which  they  are  wont  to  overstep  the 
boundaries  of  their  own  denomination  and  select 
V  their  lecturers  from  all  the  evangelical  Churches. 
It  is  the  first  time  I  have  set  foot  on  your  continent, 
but  I  have  long  entertained  a  warm  admiration  for 
the  American  people  and  a  firm  faith  in  their  des- 
tiny ;  and  I  welcome  an  opportunity  which  may 
serve,  in  any  degree,  to  demonstrate  the  unity  which 
underlies  the  variety  of  our  evangelical  communions, 
and  to  show  how  great  are  the  things  in  which  we 
agree  in  comparison  with  those  on  which  we  differ. 

The  aim  of  this  lectureship,  if  I  have  apprehended 
it  aright,  is  that  men  who  are  out  on  the  sea  of 
practical  life,  feeling  the  force  and  strain,  of  the 
winds  and  currents  of  the  time,  and  who  therefore 
occupy,  to  some  extent,  a  different  point  of  view 
from  either  students  or  professors,  should  come  and 


INTRODUCTORY. 


tell  you,  who  are  still  standing  on  the  terra  fir  ma  of 
college  life,  but  will  soon  also  have  to  launch  forth  on 
the  same  element,  how  it  feels  out  there  on  the  deep. 

Well,  there  is  a  considerable  difference. 

The  professorial  theory  of  college  life  is,  that  the 
faculties  are  being  exercised  and  the  resources  col- 
lected with  which  the  battles  of  life  are  subsequent- 
ly to  be  fought  and  its  victories  won.  And  there 
is,  no  doubt,  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  this  theory. 
The  acquisitions  of  the  class-room  will  all  be  found 
useful  in  future,  and  your  only  regret  will  be  that 
they  have  not  been  more  extensive  and  thorough. 
The  gymnastic  of  study  is  suppling  faculties  which 
will  be  indispensable  hereafter.  Yet  there  is  room 
amidst  your  studies,  and  without  the  slightest  dis- 
paragement to  them,  for  a  message  more  directly 
from  life,  to  hint  to  you,  that  more  may  be  needed 
in  the  career  to  which  you  are  looking  forward  than  a 
college  can  give,  and  that  the  powers  on  which  success, 
in  practical  life  depends  may  be  somewhat  different 
from  those  which  avail  most  at  your  present  stage. 

There  are  two  very  marked  types  of  intellect  to  be 
observed  amongst  men,  which  we  may  call  the  re- 
ceptive and  the  creative.  Receptive  intellect  has 
the  power  of  taking  fully  in  what  is  addressed  to  it 
by  others.  It  separates  its  acquisitions  and  distrib- 
utes them  among  the  pigeon-holes  of  the  memory. 


6       THE   PREACHER   AND    HIS   MODELS. 

Out  of  these  again  it  can  reproduce  them,  as  occa- 
sion requires,  and  even  make  what  may  be  called 
permutations  and  combinations  among  its  materials 
with  skill  and  facility.  The  creative  intellect,  on 
the  contrary,  is  sometimes  anything  but  apt  to  re- 
ceive that  which  people  attempt  to  put  into  it. 
Instead  of  being  an  open,  roomy  vessel  for  holding 
things,  it  may  be  awkwardly  shaped,  and  sometimes 
difficult  to  open  at  all.  Nor  do  things  pour  out  of  it 
in  a  stream,  as  water  does  from  a  pitcher ;  they  rather 
flash  out  of  it,  like  sparks  from  the  anvil.  Instead  of 
possessing  its  own  knowledge,  it  is  possessed  by  it ; 
it  burns  as  it  emits  it,  and  its  fire  is  contagious. 

The  former  is  the  serviceable  intellect  at  college, 
but  it  is  the  latter  which  makes  the  preacher.  There 
may,  indeed,  here  and  there,  be  miraculous  profes- 
sors who  attach  more  importance,  and  give  higher 
marks,  to  the  indications  of  the  creative  intellect 
than  to  the  achievements  of  the  receptive  intellect. 
But  few  can  resist  the  appeal  made  by  the  clear, 
correct  and  copious  reproduction  of  what  they  have 
themselves  supplied.  Indeed,  they  would  not,  as  a 
rule,  be  justified  in  doing  so  ;  for  the  first  indica- 
tions of  originality  are  often  crude  and  irritating, 
and  they  may  come  to  nothing.  The  creative  intel- 
lect is  frequently  slow  in  maturing  ;  it  is  like  those 
seeds  which  take  more  than  one  season  to  blossom. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


But  at  a  flower  show  it  would  not  be  fair  to  with- 
hold the  prize  from  the  flower  which  has  blossomed 
already,  and  reserve  it  for  one  which  may  possibly 
do  so  next  year. 

Of  my  fellow-students  in  the  class  to  which  I 
belonged  at  college,  the  two  who  have  since  been 
most  successful  did  not  then  seem  destined  for  first 
places.  They  were  known  to  be  able  men,  but  they 
were  not  excessively  laborious,  and  they  kept  them- 
selves irritatingly  detached  from  the  interests  of  the 
college.  But  the  one  has  since  unfolded  a  remark- 
able originality,  which  was,  no  doubt,  even  then 
organizing  itself  in  the  inner  depths  ;  and  the  other, 
as  soon  as  he  entered  the  pulpit,  turned  out  to  have 
the  power  of  casting  a  spell  over  the  minds  of  men. 
Both  had  a  sj^ark  of  nature's  fire  ;  and  this  is  the 
possession  which  outshines  all  others  when  college 
is  over  and  practical  life  begun.* 


'  "  A  set  o'  dull,  conceited  hashes 
Confuse  their  brains  in  colleg''  classes, 
They  gang  in  stirks,  and  come  out  asses, 

Plain  truth  to  speak, 
An'  syne  they  hope  to  speel  Parna>sus 

By  dint  o'  Greek. 

"  Gi'e  me  a'e  spark  <?'  nature^s  fire, 

That's  a'  the  learnin'  I  desire, 

Then,  though  I  trudge  through  dub  an'  mire, 

At  pleuch  or  cart, 
My  muse,  though  homely  in  attire, 

May  touch  the  heart. "^Burns. 


8  THE    PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

But,  if  the  viewpoint  of  practical  life  is  different 
even  from  the  professorial,  it  is  still  more  different 
from  that  of  students  ;  and  this  may  again  justify 
the  bringing  of  a  message  from  the  outside  world. 
The  difference  might  be  put  in  many  ways  ;  but 
perhaps  it  may  be  best  expressed  by  saying,  that, 
while  you  are  among  the  critics,  we  are  among  the 
criticized. 

In  the  history  of  nearly  all  minds  of  the  better 
sort  there  is  an  epoch  of  criticism.  The  young  soul, 
as  it  begins  to  observe,  discovers  that  things  around 
it  are  not  all  as  they  ought  to  be,  and  that  the  world 
is  not  so  perfect  a  place  as  might  naturally  be  ex- 
pected or  as  it  may  have  been  represented  to  be. 
The  critical  faculty  awakes  and,  having  once  tasted 
blood,  rushes  forth  to  judge  all  men  and  things 
with  cruel  ability.  This  is  the  stage  at  which  we 
agree  with  Carlyle  in  thinking  mankind  to  be  mostly 
fools  and  pronounce  every  man  over  five-and-forty 
who  does  not  happen  to  agree  with  our  opinions  an 
old  fogey.  It  is  the  time  when  we  are  confident 
that  we  could,  if  we  chose,  single-handed  and  with 
ease,  accomplish  tasks  which  generations  of  men 
have  struggled  with  in  vain.  Only  in  the  mean- 
time we,  for  our  part,  are  not  disposed  to  commit 
ourselves  to  any  creed  or  to  champion  any  cause, 
because  we  are  engaged  in  contemplating  all. 


I.YTRODUCTORV. 


Tliis  period  occurs,  I  say,  in  the  history  of  all  men 
of  the  abler  sort  ;  but  in  students,  on  account  of 
their  peculiar  opportunities,  the  symptoms  are  gen- 
erally exceptionally  pronounced.  Students  are  the 
chartered  libertines  of  criticism.  What  a  life  pro- 
fessors would  lead,  if  they  only  knew  what  is  said 
about  them  every  day  of  their  lives!  I  often  think 
that  three-fourths  of  every  faculty  in  the  country 
would  disappear  some  morning  by  a  simultaneous 
act  of  self-effacement.  Of  course  ministers  do  not 
escape  ;  ecclesiastics  and  Church  courts  are  quite  be- 
yond redemption  ;  and  principalities  and  powers  in 
general  are  in  the  same  condemnation. 

Such  is  the  delightful  prerogative  of  the  position 
in  which  you  now  stand.  But,  gentlemen,  the  mo- 
ment you  leave  these  college  gates  behind,  you 
have  to  pass  from  your  place  among  the  critics  and 
take  your  place  among  the  criticized.  That  is,  you 
will  have  to  quit  the  well-cushioned  benches,  where 
the  spectators  sit  enjoying  the  spectacle,  and  take 
your  place  among  the  gladiators  in  the  arena.  The 
binoculars  of  the  community  will  be  turned  upon 
you,  and  five  hundred  or  a  thousand  people  will  be 
entitled  to  say  twice  or  thrice  every  week  what  they 
think  of  your  performances.  You  will  have  to  put 
yourshoulder  under  the  huge  mass  of  your  Church's 
policy  and  try  to  keep  step  with  some  thousands 


10  THE    PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

whose  shoulders  are  under  it  too  ;  and  the  reproaches 
cast  by  the  public  and  the  press  at  the  awkwardness 
of  the  whole  squad  and  the  unsteadiness  of  the  ark 
will  fall  on  you  along  with  the  rest. 

Seriously,  this  is  a  tremendous  difference.  Criti- 
cism, however  brilliant,  is  a  comparatively  easy 
thing.  It  is  easier  to  criticize  the  greatest  things 
superbly  than  to  do  even  small  things  fairly  well. 
A  brief  experience  of  practical  life  gives  one  a  great 
respect  for  some  men  whom  one  would  not  at  one 
time  have  considered  very  brilliant,  and  for  work 
which  one  would  have  pronounced  very  imperfect. 
There  is  a  famous  passage  in  Lucretius,  in  which  he 
speaks  of  the  joy  of  the  mariner  who  has  escaped 
to  dry  land,  when  he  sees  his  shipwrecked  compan- 
ions still  struggling  in  the  waves.  This  is  too 
heathenish  a  sentiment ;  but  I  confess  I  have  some- 
times experienced  a  touch  of  it,  when  I  have  beheld 
one  who  has  distinguished  himself  by  his  incisive- 
ness,  while  still  on  the  terra  firma  of  criticism,  sud- 
denly dropped  into  the  bottomless  sea  of  actual  life 
and  learning,  amidst  his  first  struggles  in  the  waves, 
not  without  gulps  of  salt-water,  the  difference  be- 
tween intention  and  performance. 

But  do  not  suppose  that  I  am  persuading  you 
to  give  up  criticism.     On  the   contrary,  this  is  the 


I,V TRODUC TOR  Y.  \  \ 


natural  function  of  the  stage  at  which  you  are ; 
and  probably  those  who  throw  themselves  most 
vigorously  into  it  now  may  also  discharge  most 
successfully  the  functions  of  the  stages  yet  to 
come.  The  world  reaps  not  a  little  advantage  from 
criticism.  It  is  a  very  imperfect  world  ;  no  gener- 
ation of  its  inhabitants  does  its  work  as  well  as  it 
ought  to  be  done,  and  it  is  the  undoubted  right  of 
the  next  generation  to  detect  its  defects  ;  for  in 
this  lies  the  only  chance  of  improvement.  There 
is  something  awe-inspiring  in  the  first  glance  cast 
by  the  young  on  the  world  in  which  they  find 
themselves.  It  is  so  clear  and  unbiassed  ;  they 
distinguish  so  instantaneously  between  the  right  and 
the  wrong,  the  noble  and  the  base  ;  and  they  blurt 
out  so  frankly  what  they  see.  As  we  grow  older, 
we  train  ourselves  unawares  not  to  see  straight 
or,  if  we  see,  we  hold  our  peace.  The  first  open 
look  of  young  eyes  on  the  condition  of  the  world 
is  one  of  the  principal  regenerative  forces  of  hu- 
manity. 

To  begin  with,  therefore,  at  all  events  I  will 
rather  come  to  your  standpoint  than  ask  you  to 
come  to  mine.  Indeed,  although  I  have  for  some 
time  been  among  the  criticized,  and  my  sympathies 
are  with  the  practical  workers,  my  sense  of  how  im- 
perfectly the  work  is  done,  and  of  how  inadequate 


12  THE   PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

our  efforts  are  to  the  magnitude  of  the  task,  grows 
stronger  instead  of  weaker.  And  it  is  from  this 
point  of  view  that  I  mean  to  enter  into  our  subject. 
I  will  make  use  of  the  facts  of  my  own  country, 
with  which  I  am  familiar ;  but  I  do  not  suppose 
that  the  state  of  things  among  you  is  substantially 
different  ;  and  you  will  not  have  much  difficulty  in 
correcting  the  picture,  to  make  it  correspond  with 
your  circumstances,  whilst  I  speak. 

In  the  present  century  there  has  certainly  been  an 
unparalleled  multiplication  of  the  instrumentalities 
for  doing  the  work.  The  machine  of  religion,  so  to 
speak,  has  been  perfected.  The  population  has 
been  increasing  fast ;  but  churches  have  multiplied 
at  least  twice  as  fast.  Even  in  a  great  city  like 
Glasgow  we  have  a  Protestant  church  to  every  two 
thousand  of  the  population.*  And,  inside  the 
churches,  the  multiplication  of  agencies  has  been 
even  more  surprising.  Formerly  the  minister  did 
almost  all  the  work  ;  and  it  comprehended  little  more 
than  the  two  services  on  Sunday  and  the  visitation 
of  the  congregation  ;  the  elders  helping   him  to  a 

*  "In  iSSo  there  was  in  the  United  States  one  Evangelical  Church  or- 
ganization to  tvery  516  of  the  population.  In  Boston  there  is  i  churcli 
to  every  1,600  of  the  population  ;  in  Chicago  i  to  2,081  ;  in  New  York 
I  to  2,468 ;  in  St.  Louis  i  to  2,800." — Our  Country,  by  Rev.  Josiah 
Strung,  D.  D. 


IN  TROD  UC  TOR  V.  \  3 


small  extent  in  financing  the  congregation  and  in 
a  few  other  matters  largely  secular.  But  now  every 
congregation  is  a  perfect  hive  of  Christian  activity. 
In  a  large  congregation  the  workers  are  counted  by 
■hundreds.  Every  imaginable  form  of  philanthropic 
and  religious  appliance  is  in  operation.  Buildings 
for  Sabbath  Schools  and  Mission  Work  are  added 
to  the  church  ;  and  nearly  every  day  of  the  week 
has  its  meeting. 

The  machine  of  religion  is  large  and  complicated, 
and  it  is  manned  by  so  many  workers  that  they  get 
in  each  other's  way  ;  but,  with  all  this  bustling  ac- 
tivity, is  the  work  done  ?  This  is  the  question 
which  gives  us  pause.  Has  the  amount  of  practical 
Christianity  increased  in  proportion  to  the  multi- 
plication of  agencies  ?  Are  the  prospects  of  religion 
as  much  brighter  than  they  used  to  be  as  might 
have  been  expected  after  all  this  expenditure  of 
labour?  Is  Christianity  deepening  as  well  as 
spreading? 

In  Glasgow,  where  the  proportion  of  churches  to 
population  is  so  high,  they  speak  of  two  hundred 
thousand  non-church-goers,  that  is,  a  third  of  the 
inhabitants;  and,  if  you  go  into  one  of  our  villages 
with  two  or  three  thousand  of  a  population,  you 
may  find  three  or  four  churches,  belonging  to  dif- 
ferent denominations  ;    but  you     will    usually    find 


14  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

even  there  a  considerable  body  of  non-church-goers. 
Not  long  ago  I  heard  a  London  clergyman  state, 
that,  if,  any  Sunday  morning,  you  went  through  the 
congregations  belonging  to  the  Church  of  England  in 
the  district  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  inhab- 
itants in  which  he  labours,  you  would  not,  in  all  of 
them  put  together,  find  one  man  present  for  every 
thousand  of  the  population.  One  of  the  English 
bishops  recently  admitted  that  in  South  London 
his  Church  is  not  in  possession  ;  and  certainly  no 
other  denomination  is.  Thus,  with  all  our  appli- 
ances, we  have  failed  even  to  bring  the  population 
within  the  sound  of  the  Gospel. 

Inside  the  churches,  what  is  to  be  said  ?  Is  the 
^  proportion  large  of  those  who  have  received  the 
Gospel  in  such  a  way  that  their  hearts  have  mani- 
festly been  changed  by  it  and  their  lives  brought 
under  its  sway?  We  should  utterly  deceive  our- 
selves if  we  imagined  that  real  Christianity  is  co- 
extensive with  the  profession  of  Christianity.  Many 
who  bear  the  Christian  name  have  neither  Christian 
experience  nor  Christian  character,  but  in  their 
spirit  and  pursuits  are  thoroughly  worldly.  Even 
where  religion  has  taken  real  hold,  is  the  type  very 
often  beautiful  and  impressive?  Who  can  think 
without  shame  of  the  long  delay  of  the  Church  even 
to  attempt   the  work   of    converting   the  heathen? 


IN  TROD  UC  TOR  Y.  \  5 

And  even  yet  the  sacrifices  made  for  this  object  are 
ludicrously  small  in  proportion  either  to  the  magni- 
tude of  the  problem  or  the  wealth  of  the  Christian 
community.  The  annual  expenditure  of  the  United 
Kingdom  on  drink  is  said  to  be  a  hundred  times  as 
great  as  that  on  foreign  missions. 

Religion  does  not  permeate  life.  The  Church  is 
one  of  the  great  institutions  of  the  country,  and 
gets  its  own  place.  But  it  is  a  thing  apart  from  the 
common  life,  which  goes  on  beside  it.  Business, 
politics,  literature,  amusements,  are  only  faintly  col- 
oured by  it.  Yet  the  mission  of  Christianity  is  not 
to  occupy  a  respectable  place  apart,  but  to  leaven 
life  through  and  through. 

Vice  flourishes  side  by  side  with  religion.  We 
build  the  school  and  the  church,  and  then  we  open 
beside  them  the  public-house.  The  Christian  com- 
munity has  the  power  of  controlling  this  traffic; 
but  it  allows  it  to  go  on  with  all  its  unspeakable 
horrors.  Thus  its  own  work  is  systematically  un- 
done, and  faster  than  the  victims  can  be  saved  new 
ones  are  manufactured  to  occupy  their  places.  Of 
vices  which  are  still  more  degrading  I  need  not 
speak.  Their  prevalence  is  too  p.itent  everywhere. 
"If  there  is  any  law  of  Christianity  which  is  obvious 
and  inexorable,  it  is  the  law  of  purity.  But  go 
where  you  will  in  the  Christian  countries,  and  you 


16  THE   PREACHER   AND   MS  MODELS. 

will  learn  that  by  large  sections  of  their  manhood 
this  law  is  treated  a.^  if  it  did  not  exist.  The  truth 
is  that,  in  spite  of  the  nations  being  baptized  in  the 
name  of  Christ,  heathenism  has  still  the  control  of 
much  of  their  life  ;  and  it  would  hardly  be  too  much 
to  say  that  the  mission  of  Christianity  is  still  only 
beginning. 

In  what  direction  does  hope  lie  ?  It  seems  to  me 
that  there  can  be  no  more  important  factor  in  the 
solution  of  the  problem  than  the  kind  of  men  who 
fill  the  office  of  the  ministry.  We  must  have  men 
of  more  power,  more  concentration  on  the  aims  of 
the  ministry,  more  wisdom,  but,  above  all,  more 
willingness  to  sacrifice  their  lives  to  their  vocation. 
We  have  too  tame  and  conventional  a  way  of  think- 
ing about  our  career.  Men  are  not  even  ambitious 
of  doing  more  than  settling  in  a  comfortable  posi- 
tion and  getting  through  its  duties  in  a  respectable 
way.  We  need  to  have  men  penetrated  with  the 
problem  as  a  whole,  and  labouring  with  the  new 
developments  which  the  times  require.  The  prizes 
of  the  ministry  ought  to  be  its  posts  of  greatest 
difficulty.  When  a  student  or  young  minister 
proves  to  have  the  genuine  gift,  his  natural  goal 
should  not  be  a  highly  paid  place  in  a  West  End 
church,  but  a  position  where  he  would  be  in  the 
forefront  of  the   battle  with  sin  and   misery.     No- 


/A'  TROD  UC  TOR  Y.  \  7 


where  else  are  the  great  lines  of  Chapman  more  ap- 
plicable than  in  our  calling: — 

Give  me  a  spirit  that  on  this  life's  rough  sea 
Loves  to  have  his  sails  filled  with  a  lusty  wind. 
Even  till  his  saiiyards  tremble,  his  masts  crack, 
And  his  rapt  ship  runs  on  her  side  so  low 
That  she  drinks  water  and  her  keel  ploughs  air. 

I  am  well  aware  that  men  of  this  stamp  cannot  be 
made  to  order.  They  must,  as  I  have  suggested 
already,  have  a  spark  of  nature's  fire,  and,  besides 
that,  the  Spirit  of  God  must  descend  on  them. 
Yet  I  have  thought  that  it  nn'ght  be  helpful 
towards  this  end  to  go  back  to  the  origins  of 
preaching^  and  to  study  those  in  whom  its  primi- 
tive spirit  was  embodied.  Perhaps  that  which  we 
are  desiderating  could  not  be  better  expressed  than 
by  saying  that  Ave  need  a  ministry  prophetic  and 
apostolic.  And  I  am  going  to  invite  you  to  study 
the  prophets  and  apostles  as  our  models. 

Though  we  may  not  believe  in  apostolic  succes- 
sion in  the  churchly  sense,  we  are  the  successors 
of  the  apostles  in  this  sense,  that  the  apostles  filled 
the  office  which  wc  hold,  or  hope  to  hold,  and  illus- 
trated the  manner  in  which  its  duties  should  be 
discharged  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  an  example  and 
an  inspiration  to  all  its  subsequent  occupants.  The 
air  they  breathed   was   still   charged  with  the  spirit 


18  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

poured  into  it  by  Christ;  they  were  made  great  by 
the  influence  of  His  teaching  and  companionship; 
the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  freshly  descended, 
burned  on  their  hearts  ;  and  they  went  forth  on 
their  mission  with  a  force  of  conviction  and  a  mas- 
tery of  their  task  which  nothing  could  resist. 

One  among  them  embodied  in  himself,  above  all 
others,  the  spirit  of  that  epoch  of  creative  energy. 
St.  Paul  is  perhaps,  after  our  Lord  Himself,  the 
most  complete  embodiment  of  the  ministerial  life 
on  all  its  sides  which  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
And,  fortunately,  he  embodied  this  spirit  not  only 
in  deeds,  but  also  in  words.  Circumstances  made 
him  a  writer  of  letters,  the  most  autobiographical 
form  of  literature.  His  friends,  such  as  Timothy 
and  Titus,  drew  out  of  him  lengthy  expressions  of 
the  convictions  wrought  into  his  mind  by  the  ex- 
periences of  a  lifetime.  His  enemies,  by  their  ac- 
cusations, struck  out  of  him  still  ampler  and  more 
heartfelt  statements  of  his  feelings  and  motives. 
St.  Paul  has  painted  his  own  portrait  at  full  length, 
and  in  every  line  it  is  the  portrait  of  a  minister. 
There  is  more  in  his  writings  which  touches  the 
very  quick  of  our  life  as  ministers  than  in  all  other 
writings  in  existence.  It  is  my  desire  to  reproduce 
this  straight  from  the  sources.  I  have  no  intention 
of   going  over   the    outward  life   of  St.  Paul.      This 


IN  TROD  UC  TOR  Y.  \  9 


you  can  find  in  a  hundred  books.  But  I  desire  to 
exhibit  the  very  soul  of  the  man,  as  he  himself  has 
revealed  it  to  us  in  his  writings. 

If  we  are  the  successors  of  the  apostles,  the 
apostles  were  the  successors  of  the  prophets,  who 
did  for  the  Church  of  the  Old  Testament  what  the 
apostles  did  for  that  of  the  New.  In  outward 
aspect  and  detail,  indeed,  the  life  of  the  prophets 
differed  much  from  that  of  the  apostles.  In  force 
of  manhood  and  in  variety  and  brilliance  of  genius 
they  far  excelled  them.  But  their  aim  was  the 
same.  It  was  to  make  the  kingdom  of  God  come 
by  announcing  and  enforcing  the  mind  and  will  of 
God.     And  this  is  our  aim  too. 

The  writings  of  the  prophets  are  very  difficult, 
and  their  period  is  less  popularly  known  than  any 
other  period  of  Scripture  history,  either  before  or 
after  it.  But  it  is  beginning  to  attract  more  atten- 
tion, and  in  the  near  future  it  will  do  so  much  more, 
because  it  is  beginning  to  be  perceived  that  in  it 
lies  the  key  to  the  whole  Old  Testament  history 
and  literature.*  The  writings  of  Isaiah  especially 
have  of  late  attracted  attention.  Commentary 
after  commentary  on  them  has  appeared  ;  f  till  now 
the  reader  can  see   his  way  pretty  clearly  through 

*  See  Duhm  :  Die  Theologie  der  Proplieten — preface. 
tCheyne,  Smith,  Delitzscli,  vou  Oielli,  Dillniann,  etc. 


20  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

the  tangled  but  enchanting  mazes  of  his  writings. 
With  such  helps  as  have  been  available  to  me  I 
have  endeavoured  through  the  writings  to  get  at 
the  man  ;  and  I  will  take  Isaiah  as  the  representa- 
tive of  the  prophetic  spirit  in  the  same  way  as  St. 
Paul  is  to  represent  for  us  the  apostles.  But  here 
again  my  aim  is  neither  that  of  the  commentator 
nor  that  of  the  biographer.  It  is  the  soul  of  the 
man  I  wish  to  depict  and  the  spirit  of  his  work. 

It  may  be  thought  that,  by  taking  up  the  subject 
in  this  way,  I  am  missing  the  opportunity  of  deal- 
ing with  the  practical  work  of  to-day.  But  I  do 
not  think  so.  There  are,  indeed,  some  details 
nearly  always  discussed  in  lectures  on  preaching 
which  I  do  not  care  to  touch.  There  is,  for  in- 
stance, the  question  of  the  delivery  of  sermons — 
whether  the  preacher  should  read,  or  speak  viemo- 
riter,  or  preach  extempore.  This  can  be  discussed 
endlessly,  and  the  discussion  is  always  interesting  ; 
but,  if  it  were  discussed  every  year  for  a  century,  it 
would  be  as  far  from  being  settled  as  ever.  Be- 
sides, it  is  my  duty  to  remember  what  others  have 
handled  exhaustively  here  before  me.  Indeed,  the 
Senate  mentioned  to  me  that  it  was  desirable  that 
the  subject  should  be  taken  up  from  a  new  point 
of  view.  They  have  been  good  enough  to  express 
their  approbation  of  the  way  in  which  I   mean  to 


IN IROD UCTOR  Y.  21 

treat  it ;  but  it  is  not  in  deference  to  their  instruc- 
tions that  I  take  it  up  in  this  way,  but  in  accord- 
ance with  the  bent  of  my  own  mind  ;  and  I  think  I 
see  my  way  to  bring  to  bear  on  it  all  the  practical 
experience  which  I  may  be  in  possession  of;  for  I 
quite  recognise  that  the  value  of  such  a  course  of 
lectures  largely  depends  on  its  being,  from  begin- 
ning to  end,  what  in  literature  is  called  a  Confes- 
sion, that  is,  a  record  of  experiences.  Although  I 
am  to  go  back  to  the  ages  of  the  apostles  and  the 
prophets,  I  do  not  intend  to  stay  there.  My  wish 
is  to  bring  down  from  thence  fire  which  will  kindle 
your  hearts,  as  you  face  the  world  and  the  tasks  of 
•to-day. 

There  is  another  objection,  which  may  have 
already  occurred  to  some  of  you,  and  would  doubt- 
less occur  to  many,  as  I  went  along,  if  I  did  not 
anticipate  it.  It  may  be  felt,  that  both  apostles 
and  prophets  were  so  differently  situated  from  us, 
especially  through  the  possession  of  the  gift  of  in- 
spiration, that  they  can  be  no  example  for  us  to 
follow.  To  this  I  will  not  reply  by  seeking  in  any 
way  to  minimise  their  inspiration.  It  is,  indeed, 
difficult  to  say  exactly  how  their  inspiration  differed 
from  that  which  is  accessible  and  indispensable  to 
us;  for  we  also  are  entirely  dependent  for  the  power 

and  success  of  our  work  on  the  same  Spirit  as  spoke 
3 


22  THE    rREACHER  AND    HIS  MODELS. 

through  them.  But,  however  difficult  it  may  be  to 
define  it,  I  am  one  of  those  who  believe  that  there 
is  a  difference,  and  that  it  is  a  great  difference.  The 
mind  and  will  of  God  expressed  themselves  through 
the  prophets  and  apostles  with  a  directness  and  au- 
thority which  we  carmot  claim.  But  the  difference 
is  not  such  as  to  remove  them  beyond  our  imitation. 
Although  in  some,  or  even  many,  respects  they  may 
be  beyond  us,  this  is  no  reason  why  we  may  not  in 
others  imitate  them  with  the  greatest  advantage. 
It  will  be  seen  at  a  glance  how  little  there  is  in  this 
objection,  if  it  be  considered  that  our  Lord  Himself 
is  the  great  pattern  of  the  ministry.  In  some  re- 
spects He  is  of  course  much  farther  away  from  us 
than  either  prophets  or  apostles;  yet  He  is  near  us 
as  a  model  in  every  detail  of  our  duty.  No  mode 
of  treating  my  subject  would  have  been  so  congenial 
to  me  as  to  set  Him  forth  in  this  character.  But, 
having  attempted  to  do  so  elsewhere,  I  have  chosen 
the  method  now  announced  under  the  conviction, 
that  the  nearest  approach  to  the  study  of  how  Christ 
fulfilled  the  duties  of  the  ministry  is  to  study  how 
prophets  and  apostles  fulfilled  them. 

There  is  one  thing  more  which  I  should  like  to 
say  before  closing  this  somewhat  miscellaneous  in- 
troductory   lecture.      I    would    not    have    come    to 


AV TROD UCTOR  Y.  23 

lecture  to  you  on  this  subject  if  I  were  not  a  firm 
believer  in  preaching.  If  in  what  has  been  already 
said  I  have  seemed  to  depreciate  its  results,  this  is 
only  because  my  ideal  is  so  high  of  what  the  pulpit 
ought  to  do,  and  might  do.*  I  do  not,  indeed, 
separate  preaching  from  the  other  parts  of  a  min- 
ister's life,  such  as  the  conducting  of  the  service  of 
the  sanctuary,  the  visitation  of  the  congregation,  and 
taking  part  in  more  general  public  work.  As  I  go 
on,  it  will  be  seen,  that,  so  far  from  undervaluing 
these,  I  hold  them  to  be  all  required  even  to  pro- 
duce a  healthy  pulpit  power.  Yet  preaching  is  the 
central  thing  in  our  work.  I  believe  in  it,  because 
Christ  Himself  set  His  stamp  on  it.      Read  His  say- 


*  "After  eleven  years  of  active  preaching  I  have  spent  five  of  hardly 
less  active  hearing.  I  have  listened  carefully  to  preachers  of  ail  degrees 
and  denominations,  and  some  convictions  have  been  burned  in  upon  my 
mind.  Far  above  all,  I  have  learned  to  believe  in  the  great  importance 
of  preaching — the  effect  it  has  on  men's  lives  and  thoughts  ;  their  need 
of  It ;  their  pain  and  loss  when  it  does  not  help  and  reach  them.  I  used 
to  think  th.it,  if  it  did  men  good,  they  would  speak  more  of  it.  But  they 
pay  no  compliments  to  their  daily  bread  ;  yet  it  is  tlie  staff  of  their  life. 
If  ministers  knew  the  silent  appreciation  of  helpful  preaching,  tliey  would 
work,  if  not  harder,  at  least  mtre  brightly  and  hopefully.  .  .  .  Preachers 
should  remember  that  the  large  sil-nt  part  <  f  their  flock  is  only  reached 
by  preaching,  and,  therefore,  they  should  give  their  strength  to  it,  and 
n-t  to  little  meetings.  Suppose  an  average  insta'  ce  :  Sunday  morning 
attendance,  250.  The  minister  does  n  t  preach  well ;  but  he  works  hard 
during  the  week,  and  has,  Morday,  Literary  Society,  15  ;  Tuesday, 
Young  Ladies'  Bible  Class,  12  ;  Wednesday,  Prayer  Meeting,  30;  Thurs- 
day, Class  for  Servants,  S  ;  Friday,  Class  for  Children,  15.  All  t  Id, 
these  do  not  represent  m^re  than  50  leaving  200  reached  only  by  preach- 
ing, and  more  or  less  dissatisfied  " — Ex  sapient  is  jnanuscripto  penes  me. 


24  THE   PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

ings,  and  you  will  see  that  this  was  what  He  sent 
forth  the  servants  of  His  kingdom  to  do.  "Christ," 
says  St.  Paul,  "  sent  me  not  to  baptize,  but  to 
preach  the  Gospel  "  ;  not,  I  think,  thereby  ignoring 
baptism,  but  putting  it  and  all  other  ceremonies  in 
their  proper  place  of  subordination  to  the  preaching 
of  the  Word. 

It  is  often  charged  against  the  evangelical,  and 
especially  the  free.  Churches  at  the  present  day, 
that  they  give  preaching  a  position  of  too  great 
prominence  in  public  worship ;  and  we  are  coun- 
selled to  yield  the  central  place  to  something  else. 
It  is  put  to  us,  for  example,  whether  our  people 
should  not  be  taught  to  come  to  church  for  the 
purpose  of  speaking  to  God  rather  than  in  order  to 
be  spoken  to  by  man.  This  has  a  pious  sound  ; 
but  there  is  a  fallacy  in  it.  Preaching  is  not  merely 
the  speaking  of  a  man.  If  it  is,  then  it  is  certainly 
not  worth  coming  to  church  for.  Preaching,  if  it  is 
of  the  right  kind,  is  the  voice  of  God.  This  we 
venture  to  say  while  well  aware  of  its  imperfections. 
In  the  best  of  preaching  there  is  a  large  human 
element  beset  with  infirmity  ;  yet  in  all  genuine 
preaching  there  is  conveyed  a  message  from 
Heaven.  And,  while  it  is  good  for  people  to  go  to 
church  that  they  may  speak  to  God,  it  is  still  better 
to  go   that    He  may   speak   to    them.      Nor,   where 


INTRODUCTORY.  25 

God  is  authentically  heard  speaking  to  the  heart,  will 
the  response  of  the  heart  in  the  other  elements  of 
worship  be  lacking.  It  is  the  reception  of  God's 
message  of  free  grace  and  redeeming  love  which  in- 
spires the  true  service  of  praise  and  prayer  ;  and 
without  this  the  service  of  the  Church  is  soulless 
ceremonial.* 

From  another  side  disparagement  is  frequently 
cast  upon  preaching  in  our  day.  It  is  said  that  the 
printing-press  has  superseded  the  preacher,  and 
must  more  and  more  supersede  him.  Formerly, 
when  people  could  not  read,  and  literature  was 
written  only  for  scholars,  the  pulpit  was  a   power, 

* "  New  Testament  preaching-  dates  from  the  day  of  Pentecost. 
Tongues  of  fire  rested  on  the  assembled  Church  ;  and  they  began  to 
speak  with  other  tongues,  as  the  Spirit  gave  them  utterance.  The  word 
of  God,  the  testimony  of  Jesus,  the  gospel  of  our  salvation,  preached  in 
tongues  of  men  of  every  r-ce,  was  to  be  the  form  of  power  by  which  the 
kingdom  of  God,  in  our  dispensation,  should  spread  abroad  and  pievail. 
But  the  tongues  were  tongues  of  fire.  This  fire  is,  first  of  all,  the  Holy 
Spirit,  whose  quick,  pure  and  living  presence  it  denotes.  But  then  it  is 
iniimated  that  the  Hfily  Spirit  was  to  prove  Himself  fire  in  the  speech  of 
men.  It  is  intimated  that  human  minds,  as  they  uttered  themselves  to 
their  fc-llow^s,  and  human  speech  in  that  utterance,  were  to  pn've  capable 
of  taking  fire,  so  rs  to  bright^  n  and  burn  with  the  truth  and  powder  of 
Gi'd's  Spirit.  Such  was  the  kind  of  preaching  that  was  set  a-going  at 
Pentecfist,  and  by  it  the  world  was  to  be  won.  Other  forms  of  influence 
were  not  to  be  excluded,  but  this  was  to  have  the  chief  place.  Tlie  word 
of  power,  coming  burning-hot  out  of  the  living  mouth  of  a  believing  man, 
is  the  leading  form  in  which  the  Spirit's  presence  is  evermore  to  make 
head  in  the  Church  against  the  world,  and  is  to  carry  the  Church  on  in 
her  mission  in  the  world.  This  gives  us  the  fundamental  view  of  our 
work  as  preachers  ;  and  nothing  more  is  needed  in  order  to  illustrate  its 
dignity  and  glory." — Principal  Rainv. 


26  THE   PREACHER   AiVD   HIS  MODELS. 

because  it  was  the  only  purveyor  of  ideas  to  the 
multitude  ;  but  now  the  common  man  has  other  re- 
sources: he  has  books,  magazines,  the  newspaper  : 
and  he  can  dispense  with  the  preacher.  To  this  it 
might  be  answered,  that  the  sermon  is  not  the  only 
thing  which  brings  people  to  church.  Where  two 
or  three  are  met  together,  there  are  influences  gen- 
erated of  a  spiritual  and  social  kind  which  answer  to 
deep  and  permanent  wants  of  human  nature.  But 
there  is  an  answer  more  direct  and  conclusive.  The 
multiplication  of  the  products  of  the  printing-press 
and  the  possession  by  the  multitude  of  the  power 
of  reading  them  are  certainly  among  the  most  won- 
derful facts  of  modern  times,  and,  I  will  add  without 
hesitation,  among  the  most  gratifying.  But  what 
do  they  mean  for  the  great  majority?  In  the  days 
before  the  age  of  the  press  arrived  people  only  knew 
the  gossip  of  their  own  town,  and  this  absorbed  their 
thoughts  and  conversation.  Now  they  hear  every 
morning  the  gossip  of  a  thousand  cities  from  China 
to  Peru.  The  world  has  become  for  the  modern 
man  immensely  larger  and  more  interesting  than  it 
was  to  his  predecessors  ;  and  facts  about  it  are  ac- 
cumulated on  his  mind  in  overwhelming  quantity 
and  bewildering  variety.  But  does  this  make  preach- 
ing less  necessary  to  him?  It  surely  makes  it  far 
more  necessary.      He  has  more  need  than  his  fathers 


ryTKonucroKV. 


had  of  those  supersensible  principles  which  give 
order  and  meaning  to  sensible  facts.  The  larger  and 
more  wonderful  the  world  becomes,  the  more  urgent 
becomes  the  question  of  the  cause  which  has  pro- 
duced it  ;  and, the  more  the  figures  multiply  which 
the  spectators  have  to  watch  on  the  theatre  of  his- 
tory, the  more  indispensable  becomes  the  knowledge 
of  the  argument  of  the  drama.  If  the  pulpit  has  an 
authentic  message  to  deliver  about  Him  whose 
thought  is  the  ground  of  all  existence,  and  whose 
will  of  love  is  the  explanation  of  the  pain  and  mys- 
tery of  life,  the  more  cultivated  and  eager  the  mind 
of  man  becomes,  then  the  more  indispensable  will 
the  voice  of  the  pulpit  be  felt  to  be  ;  and  a  real  decay 
of  the  power  of  the  pulpit  can  only  be  due  either 
to  preachers  themselves,  when,  losing  touch  with 
the  mysteries  of  revelation,  they  let  themselves 
down  to  the  level  of  vendors  of  passing  opinion,  or 
to  such  a  shallowing  of  the  general  mind  as  will 
render  it  incapable  of  taking  an  earnest  interest  in 
the  profounder  problems  of  existence. 


LECTURE  11. 
THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  GOD 


LECTURE  II. 

THE    PREACHER    AS   A    MAN    OP^    GOD. 

IN  accordance  with  the  plan  announced  yesterday, 
I  am  to  turn  your  attention  in  the  next  four 
lectures  to  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  as 
patterns  for  modern  preachers;  and  the  special  sub- 
ject for  to-day  is  The  Preacher  as  a  Man  of  God. 

To  earnest  minds  at  the  stage  at  which  you  stand 
at  present  no  question  could  be  more  interesting 
than  this:  How  does  a  right  ministry  begin  ?  what 
are  the  experiences  which  justify  or  compel  a  man 
to  turn  his  back  on  all  other  careers  and  devote 
himself  to  this  one?  On  the  minds  of  some  of  you 
this  question  may  be  pressing  at  the  present  mo- 
ment with  great  urgency.  It  is  a  question  of 
supreme  importance.  In  most  things  a  good  deal 
depends  on  beginning  well ;  but  nowhere  is  the 
commencement  more  momentous  than  here. 

This  is  a  point  on  which  the  greatest  emphasis  is 
laid  in  the  history  of  the  prophets.  We  are  told 
how  they  became  prophets.  Their  ministry  com- 
menced with  a  spiritual  experience  usually  denomi- 
nated the  Prophetic  Call. 


32  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

Such  experiences  are  narrated  of  the  greatest 
prophets.  The  call  of  Moses  was  the  scene  of  the 
Burning  Bush,  which  is  detailed  at  great  length  in 
his  biography.  The  next  outstanding  prophet  was 
Samuel,  and  there  is  no  better  known  story  in 
Scripture  than  the  touching  account  of  how  the 
Lord  called  him  to  be  the  reformer  of  an  evil 
age.  Each  of  the  three  great  literary  prophets 
— Isaiah,  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel — has  left  an  ac- 
count of  his  own  call  ;  that  of  Ezekiel  covering 
nearly  three  whole  chapters.  If  the  smaller  proph- 
ets do  not,  as  a  rule,  commemorate  similar  experi- 
ences of  their  own,  it  is  not  to  be  inferred  that  they 
did  not  pass  through  them.  The  brief  compass  of 
their  writings  is  sufficient  to  account  for  the  omis- 
sion; although  perhaps  a  subjective  element  may 
also  enter  into  the  explanation.  Among  ourselves 
there  are  men  who  are  able  to  confide  to  the  public 
their  own  most  sacred  experiences,  and  habitually 
make  use  of  them  to  illustrate  and  enforce  the  truth. 
To  others  nothing  would  be  more  unnatural:  they 
shrink  from  the  most  distant  allusion  to  the  most 
sacred  moments  of  their  spiritual  history.  Yet 
these  may  be  worth  the  whole  world  to  themselves. 
Both  modes  of  procedure  have  Scriptural  warrant ; 
for  some  of  the  prophets  narrate  their  calls,  and 
others  do  not. 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    MAN   OF  GOD.  33 

If  these  calls  of  distinguished  men  to  God's  serv- 
ice be  noted  one  by  one,  they  will  be  found  to  in- 
clude many  of  the  grandest  scenes  of  Scripture.* 
There  could  be  no  more  splendid  subject — if  I  may 
give  the  hint  in  passing — for  a  course  of  lectures  in 
the  congregation,  or  even  for  a  course,  like  the 
present,  to  students  of  divinity. 

They  exhibit  astonishing  variety.  Moses,  for 
example,  was  called  in  the  maturity  of  his  powers, 
but  Samuel  when  he  was  still  a  child.  Jeremiah's 
call  bears  a  certain  resemblance  to  that  of  Moses, 
because  both  resisted  the  Divine  will  through  ina- 
bility to  speak ;  but  in  other  respects  they  are  totally 
dissimilar.  Ezekiel's  stands  altogether  by  itself, 
and  is  extremely  difficult  to  unravel  ;  but  it  is 
thoroughly  characteristic  of  his  sublime  and  intri- 
cate genius.  Nowhere  else  could  there  be  found  a 
more  telling  illustration  of  the  diversity  of  operation 
in  which  the  Spirit  of  God  delights,  when  He  is 
touching  the  spirit  of  man,  even  if  He  is  aiming  at 
identical  results. 

For  in  all  cases  the  effect  was  the  same.  The 
man  who  was  called  to  be  a  prophet  was  separated 
by  this  summons  from  all  other  occupations  which 
could  interfere  with  the  service  for  which  God  had 


*  ■'  One  great  pait  of  the  history  of  the  Bible  is  the  history  of  Calls." 
— Dean  Church. 


34  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

designated  him.  His  whole  being  was  taken  pos- 
session of  for  the  Divine  purposes  and  subjected 
to  the  sway  of  the  Divine  inspiration.  One  of  the 
commonest  names  of  a  prophet  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  "  a  man  of  God."  Through  constant  use 
this  term  has  lost  its  meaning  for  us.  But  it  meant 
exactly  what  it  said  :  that  the  prophet  was  not  his 
own,  but  God's  man  ;  he  belonged  to  Gcd,  who 
could  send  him  wherever  He  wished  and  do  with 
him  whatever  He  would.  It  was  the  same  idea  that 
St.  Paul  expressed,  when  he  called  himself,  as  he 
loved  to  do,  "  the  slave  of  Jesus  Christ." 

It  has  sometimes  been  attempted  to  explain  these 
scenes  away,  as  if  they  were  not  records  of  actual 
e.xperience,  but  only  poetic  representations  which 
the  prophets  prefixed  to  their  writings,  to  afford 
their  readers  a  dramatic  prefigurement  of  the  general 
scope  of  their  prophecies,  ideas  being  freely  put  into 
them  which  the  prophets  did  not  themselves  pos- 
sess at  the  commencement  of  their  career,  but  only 
acquired  by  degrees  as  their  life  proceeded.*  They 
are  compared  to  such  efforts  of  the  poet  as  the 
Vision  of  Robert   Burns,  in  which   he  tells  how  the 

*  I  am  sorry  to  observe  that  even  Mr.  G.  A.  Smith,  whose  Commentary 
on  Isaiah  is  distinguished  not  only  by  thoiough  scholarship  but  by  what 
is  far  rarer  in  works  of  the  kind — a  profusion  of  just  and  inspiring;  ideas 
• — at  this  point,  fol  owing  bad  examples  says  that  there  nre  id-as  im- 
ported into  the  account  of  Isaiah's  call  which  belonged  to  a  later  period 


THE  PREACHER   AS  A    MAM  OF  GOD.  .35 


muse  of  Caledonia  appeared  to  him  at  the  plough, 
and,  casting  her  mantle  round  him  and  claiming  him 
as  her  own,  consecrated  him  the  poet  of  his  native 
land; or  the  Zucigming oi  Goethe,  in  which  he  feigns 
a  similar  experience  which  befell  him  on  the  moon- 
light heights  of  the  German  forest.  But,  though 
there  is  a  poetic  element  in  prophecy,  the  prophetic 
spirit  was  too  much  in  earnest  for  such  figments  of 
the  imagination,  which  are  alien  to  the  severity  of 
the  Hebrew  genius.  Besides,  such  scenes  are  not 
confined  to  the  Hebrew  prophets  :  they  belong  to 
the  true  religion  in  all  generations. 

Any  of  the  prophetic  calls  would  bring  suggest- 
ively before  us  the  topic  with  which  we  are  occu- 
pied to-day ;  and  it  is  not  without  regret  that  I 
turn  away  from  the  Burning  Bush,  with  its  dramatic 
dialogue  between  Jehovah  and  Moses  touching 
many  points  which  are  the  very  same  as  still  perplex 
those  who  are  standing  on  the  threshold  of  a  min- 
isterial career  ;  from  the  chamber  of  the  tabernacle, 
with  its  startling  voice,  in  which  God  opened  the 
heart  of  Samuel  to  take  in  the  purpose  of  life  ;  and 

of  his  life.  Ntt  only  is  this  wrong  psychologically,  because  it  minimises 
the  divinatoiy  power  of  the  human  spirit  in  the  great  moments  of  expe- 
rience ;  but  surely  it  is  utterly  wrong  artistically,  because,  if  the  ideas  are 
historically  out  of  place,  Isai;ih  himself  ought  to  have  felt  th.it,  by  placmg 
them  there,  he  was  breaking  tiie  spell  of  verisimilitude,  on  wh  ch  the 
effect  of  such  a  picture  depends. 


36  THE   PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

from  the  wonderfully  instructive  scene  in  which  the 
shrinking  spirit  of  Jeremiah  met  the  Divine  sum- 
mons with  the  humble  cry  of  deprecation,  "  Behold, 
I  cannot  speak  ;  for  I  am  a  child,"  till  the  Divine 
sympathy  and  wisdom  answered  his  arguments 
and  lifted  him  above  his  fears.  But  we  have  agreed 
to  take  Isaiah  as  the  representative  of  the  prophets; 
and,  in  spite  of  these  other  attractions,  we  need 
not  repent  of  this;  for  there  is  nothing  in  Holy 
Writ  more  unique  and  sublime  than  the  call  of  Isa- 
iah, and  it  is  pregnant  in  every  line  with  instruction. 
It  is,  indeed,  far  away  from  us,  and  it  will  require  a 
strong  effort  to  transport  ourselves  back  over  so 
many  centuries  and  enter  sympathetically  into  the 
experience  of  one  who  lived  in  such  a  widely  dif- 
ferent world.  But  it  is  a  real  chapter  of  human  ex- 
perience. As  Isaiah  propliesied  for  fifty  or  perhaps 
even  sixty  years  after  this,  he  must  at  the  time  have 
been  in  the  prime  of  his  days.  In  short,  he  was  at 
the  very  stage  of  life  at  which  you  are  now,  and 
this  is  an  account  of  how  a  young  man  of  three 
thousand  years  ago  became  a  public  servant  of  God. 

There  are  two  or  three  points  worth  noting  be- 
fore we  go  on  to  describe  the  scene  itself 

I.  It  is  reported  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  proph- 
ecies of  Isaiah.    We  should  naturally  have  expected 


THE  PREACHER  ASA    MAN  OF   GOD.  37 

it  to  stand  at  the  beginning  of  the  whole  book,  as 
do  the  corresponding  scenes  in  the  books  of  Jere- 
miah and  Ezekiel ;  and  it  is  not  easy  to  say  why  it 
is  not  found  in  this  position.  We  are  perhaps  too 
ready  to  think  of  the  prophecies  of  a  prophet  as  a 
continuous  book,  written,  in  one  prolonged  effort,  on 
a  single  theme,  as  books  are  written  in  modern  times. 
But  this  is  a  misconception.  They  came  together 
more  like  the  pieces  of  a  lyric  poet.  A  lyric  poet 
composes  his  pieces  at  uncertain  intervals  of  inspira- 
tion ;  they  range  over  a  great  variety  of  subjects ; 
and  it  may  only  be  late  in  life  that  he  thinks  of  col- 
lecting them  in  a  volume.  So  the  prophecies  of 
the  prophet  came  to  him  at  uncertain  and  often 
lengthy  intervals;  they  were  sometimes  very  brief, 
no  longer  than  short  lyrics ;  and  we  know  that  he 
sometimes  did  not  think  of  any  literary  publication 
of  them  till  long  after  their  oral  delivery.  A  lyric 
poet,  when  collecting  his  pieces,  may  adopt  any  one 
of  several  different  principles  of  arrangement.  The 
simplest  way  is  to  insert  them  in  chronological  order ; 
but  he  may  follow  some  subtle  psychological  arrange- 
ment, as  Wordsworth,  for  instance,  did  when  his 
collected  works  were  published  ;  or  he  may  throw 
them  together  at  random,  according  to  the  fancy  of 
the   moment ;  and   this  is  perhaps   the   commonest 

case.     There  seems  to  be  the  same  variety  in  the 
4 


38  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

prophets.  The  prophecies  of  Ezekiel,  for  example, 
are  arranged  on  the  chronological  principle,  but 
those  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  are  not ;  and  it  is  one 
of  the  most  difficult  tasks  of  interpretation  to  assign 
the  different  pieces  to  their  original  dates.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  there  is  any  rigid  principle  at  all 
in  Isaiah's  prophecies.  It  is  even  doubtful  whether 
the  order  in  which  they  stand  is  due  to  him  or  to 
a  disciple  or  editor,  who  arranged  them  after  he 
was  dead.  We  need  hardly,  therefore,  inquire  very 
strictly  why  any  particular  chapter  occurs  in  its  par- 
ticular place.  But  it  is  somewhat  awkward  that  the 
sixth  chapter  stands  where  it  does,  in  the  body 
of  the  book,  instead  of  at  the  head  of  it  ;  because 
this  hides  its  significance  from  the  general  reader. 
Scholars  are  agreed,  however,  that  it  is  an  account 
of  Isaiah's  call  to  be  a  prophet ;  and,  when  this  is 
recognised,  every  detail  of  the  scene  which  it  records 
is  invested  with  new  meaning. 

2.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  event  is  precisely 
dated.  The  chapter  begins  with  the  words,  "  In  the 
year  that  King  Uzziah  died."  There  are  forms  of 
religious  experience  which  are  dateless — processes 
of  slow  and  unmarked  growth,  which  may  spread 
themselves  over  years ;  but  there  are  also  crises, 
when  experience  crystallizes  into  events  so  remark- 
able that  they  become  standing  dates  in  the  lives  of 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    MAN  OF  GOD.  39 

those  who  have  enjoyed  them,  from  which  they 
reckon,  as  other  people  do  from  birth  or  marriage 
or  the  turning-points  of  their  domestic  and  com- 
mercial history. 

Whether  this  was  the  first  of  such  events  in  the 
history  of  Isaiah  I  have  often  wondered.  There  is 
nothing  unlikely  in  the  suggestion.  In  other  cases 
the  call  to  enter  into  God's  work  synchronized  with 
the  first  real  encounter  with  God  Himself.  Samuel's 
call  to  be  a  prophet  coincided  with  his  first  personal 
introduction  to  acquaintance  with  Jehovah,  whom,  it 
is  distinctly  stated,  he  did  not  previously  know  ;  and 
St.  Paul's  call  to  the  apostolate  happened  at  the  same 
time  as  his  conversion.  As  we  go  on,  we  shall  come 
upon  at  least  one  circumstance  which  points  pretty 
strongly  to  the  conclusion  that  this  was  Isaiah's  first 
conscious  transaction  with  God. 

3.  The  place  where  the  incident  occurred  is  also 
worthy  of  note.  It  was  in  the  temple.  Evvald  and 
other  able  commentators  interpret  this  to  mean  the 
heavenly  temple,  and  suppose  that  the  future  prophet 
was  transported  to  some  imaginary  place  which  he 
called  by  this  name.  But  this  is  quite  a  gratuitous 
suggestion,  and  it  very  much  weakens  the  impress- 
iveness  of  the  whole  scene,  the  very  point  of  which 
lies  in  the  fact  that  it  took  place  on  familiar  ground. 
Isaiah  was  a  Jerusalemite,  and  the  temple  was  the 


40  THE   PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

most  familiar  of  all  haunts  to  him.  He  had  witnessed 
there  a  thousand  times  the  external  ritual  of  religion 
— the  worshipping  multitudes,  the  priests,  and  the 
paraphernalia  of  sacrifice.  But  now,  on  the  same 
spot,  he  was  to  see  a  sight  in  whose  glory  all  these 
things  would  disappear.  This  is  what  the  critical 
moments  of  religious  experience  are  always  meant 
to  do:  they  obliterate  the  familiar  externals  of  re- 
ligion and  reveal  the  reality  which  is  hidden  behind 
them  ;  they  convert  common  spots  of  every-day  ex- 
perience into  the  house  of  God  and  the  gate  of 
heaven. 

Such  were  the  circumstances  of  time  and  place  in 
which  the  crisis  of  Isaiah's  history  occurred.  One 
day,  in  the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died,  he  wended 
his  way,  as  he  had  done  hundreds  of  times  before, 
to  the  temple;  and  there  that  took  place  which 
altered  the  whole  course  of  his  life.  Whether  in  the 
body  or  out  of  the  body,  we  cannot  tell,  he  saw 
three  successive  visions,  or  rather  a  threefold  vision — 
a  vision  of  God,  a  vision  of  sin,  and  a  vision  of  grace. 

I.  It  began  with  a  Vision  of  God.  The  chapter 
opens  with  these  sublime  words,  "  In  the  year  that 
King  Uzziah  died  I  saw  the  Lord."  It  is  an  astound- 
ing statement  to  come  from  a  prophet  of  that  religion 
whose  fundamental  principle  was  the  spirituality  of 


THE   PREACHER   AS  A    MAN   OF   GOD.  41 

God,  "  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time"  ;  and, 
indeed,  there  is  an  old  rabbinical  tradition,  that  King 
Manasseh,  who  is  said  to  have  caused  Isaiah  to  be 
sawn  asunder,  made  the  alleged  impiety  of  these 
words  the  excuse  for  his  cruelty.  But  it  was  a  mere 
excuse  ;  for  the  difficulty  only  serves  to  prove  the 
transcendent  spiritual  tact  and  literary  skill  of  the 
prophet,  who  manages  the  scene  in  such  a  way  as 
to  preserve  quite  intact  the  principle  of  the  Divine 
spirituality.  Though  he  says  that  he  saw  God,  he 
gives  no  description  of  Him;  only  the  sights  and 
sounds  round  about  Him  are  so  described  as  in  the 
most  vivid  way  to  suggest  the  Presence  which  re- 
mains unseen.  It  is  as  if  a  historical  scene  of  ruin 
and  conflagration  were  represented  on  canvas,  with- 
out showing  the  burning  materials,  by  painting  the 
glare  of  light  and  the  emotions  of  terror  and  dis- 
may on  the  faces  of  the  spectators. 

First,  the  throne  on  which  God  sits  is  described  :  it 
is  erected  in  the  temple,  and  it  is  high  and  lifted 
up,  for  He  is  a  great  King.  But  no  description  is 
given  of  the  figure  seated  on  it;  only  His  train — 
the  billowing  folds  of  His  robes — filled  the  temple. 
Above  the  throne,  or  rather  round  it,  like  the  court- 
iers surrounding  the  throne  of  an  Eastern  monarch, 
stand  the  seraphim.  These  beings  are  mentioned 
only  here  in  Holy  Writ.     Their  name  signifies  the 


42  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

shining  or  fiery  ones.  They  are  attendants  of  the 
Divine  King,  bright  and  swift  as  fire  in  their  intel- 
ligence and  activity.  Each  has  six  wings :  with 
twain  he  covers  his  face,  and  with  twain  he  covers 
his  feet,  evidently  to  protect  his  eyes  and  person 
from  the  consuming  glory  of  the  Divine  presence, 
which  is  thus  indicated  again  without  being  de- 
scribed ;  and  with  the  remaining  two  he  flies,  or 
rather  poises  himself  in  his  place  ready  for  flight  at 
the  Divine  signal. 

Then,  amidst  these  sublime  sights  break  in  sounds 
equally  sublime.  By  our  translation  the  impression 
is  produced  that  they  come  from  the  seraphim.  But 
the  original  is  more  vague,  and  the  meaning  probably 
is,  that  the  responsive  voices  which  are  heard  come 
from  unseen  choirs  in  opposite  quarters  of  the  tem- 
ple. Unceasingly  the  strain  rises  from  one  side, 
unceasingly  the  answer  comes  from  the  other  ;  in 
the  centre  the  voices  meet  and  mingle  in  loud  har- 
mony. 

Their  burden  is,  "  Holy,  holy,  holy  is  the  Lord 
of  hosts;  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  His  glory." 
That  is,  they  are  celebrating  the  two  attributes  of 
the  Divine  character  which  always  most  impressed 
a  Jewish  mind — His  holiness  and  His  omnipotence. 
The  one  is  God  as  He  is  in  Himself,  turned  inwards, 
so  to  speak.    He  is  absolutely  holy,  unapproachable, 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    MAN  OF  GOD.  43 

a  consuming  fire  scorching  away  impurity,  falsehood, 
and  sin  of  every  kind.  The  other  is  God  as  He  is  in 
the  world,  turned  outwards,  so  to  speak;  the  world's 
fulness — suns  and  systems,  mountains  and  oceans, 
earthquake  and  storm,  summer's  abundance  and 
winter's  terror—all  this  is  His  glory,  the  garment 
by  which  He  makes  Himself  visible.* 

The  voices  swell  till  the  temple  rocks,  or  seems  to 
rock  to  the  reeling  senses  of  the  prophet,  and  the 
house  is  filled  with  smoke,  or  seems  to  be  so,  as  a 
mist  envelops  the  swooning  spirit  of  the  spectator. 
But  still,  through  the  mist,  there  peal,  falling  like 
the  strokes  of  a  hammer  on  the  listening  heart,  the 
notes  of  the  dread  song,  "  Holy,  holy,  holy." 

2.  Next  ensued  a  Vision  of  Sin.  The  vision  of 
God  could  not  but  unseal  a  rushing  stream  of  feel- 
ing of  some  kind  in  Isaiah.  But  of  what  kind 
would  it  be?  Surely  of  joyful  adoration:  the  soul, 
inspired  with  the  sublimity  of  these  sights  and 
thrilled  with  these  sounds,  will  rise  to  the  majesty 
of  the  occasion,  and  the  human  voice  will  strike  in 
with  all  its  force  among  the  angelic  voices,  crying, 
"  Holy,  holy,  holy." 

So  one  might  have  expected.  But  the  human 
mind  is  a  strange  thing  ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  know 

*This  is  the  literal  tianslation,  "The   fulness  of  the  whole   world  is 
His  glory." 


44  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

where  and  how  to  touch  its  deh'cate  and  complex 
mechanism  so  as  to  produce  any  desired  effect. 
You  wish  to  produce  a  flow  of  tender  feehng,  and 
you  tell  a  pathetic  tale,  which  ought,  you  think,  to 
move  the  heart.  But  at  every  sentence  the  features 
of  the  listeners  harden  into  more  and  more  rigidity, 
or  even  relax  into  mocking  laughter;  whereas  the 
suggestion  of  a  noble  thought,  which  seems  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  pathos,  may  instantaneously 
melt  the  soul  and  unseal  the  fountain  of  tears.  Or 
is  it  the  conscience  which  is  to  be  affected  ?  The 
clumsy  operator  begins  to  assail  it  straight  with  de- 
nunciations of  sin,  but,  instead  of  producing  peni- 
tence, he  only  rouses  the  whole  man  into  proud 
and  angry  self-defence  ;  whereas  a  single  touch,  no 
heavier  than  an  infant's  finger,  applied  away  up 
somewhere,  remote  from  conscience,  in  the  region 
of  the  imagination,  may  send  an  electric  shock  down 
through  the  whole  being  and  shake  the  conscience 
from  centre  to  circumference. 

Isaiah's  mind  was  one  of  the  most  sensitive  and 
complicated  ever  bestowed  on  a  human  being  ;  but 
it  was  now  in  the  hands  of  its  Maker,  who  knew 
how  to  touch  it  to  fine  issues.  The  Maker's  design 
on  this  occasion  was  to  produce  in  it  an  overpower- 
ing sense  of  sin  ;  and  what  He  did  was  to  confront 
it  with  infinite  holiness  and   majesty.     These  were 


THE  PREACHER  ASA    MAN  OF  GOD.  45 

brought  so  near  that  there  was  no  escape.  The  poor, 
finite,  sinful  man  was  held  at  arm's  length,  so  to 
speak,  in  the  grasp  of  the  Infinite  and  Most  Holy; 
and  the  result  was  a  total  collapse  of  the  human 
spirit.  Isaiah's  eye  turned  away  from  the  sight  of 
God's  glory  back  upon  himself,  and  back  on  his  past 
life;  and,  in  this  light,  all  appeared  foul  and  hid- 
eous. There  was  sin  everywhere — sin  in  himself  and 
sin  in  his  environment.  He  was  utterly  confounded 
and  swallowed  up  of  shame  and  terror.  "  Woe  is 
me,"  he  groaned,  "  for  I  am  undone  ;  because  I  am 
a  man  of  unclean  lips,  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of 
a  people  of  unclean  lips." 

Why  he  felt  the  taint  specially  on  his  lips  it 
might  not  be  easy  to  tell.  Perhaps  it  was  because 
the  angelic  song  was  a  challenge  to  join  in  the 
praise  of  God,  but  he  felt  that  the  lips  of  one  like 
him  were  not  worthy  to  join  in  their  song.  Perhaps 
—who  can  tell  ? — the  besetting  sin  of  his  previous 
life  may  have  been  profanity  of  speech,  as  it  was 
evidently  a  crying  sin  of  his  time.  This  suggestion 
gives  a  shock  to  the  ideas  which  we  associate  with 
Isaiah,  and  it  is  hard  to  think  that  the  lips  which 
afterwards  spoke  like  angels  can  ever  have  defiled 
themselves  with  such  a  sin.  But  this  is  the  most 
natural  meaning  of  the  words,  and  it  is  not  against 
the  analogy  of  other  lives.     Great  saints,  and  even 


46  THE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

great  preachers,  are  made  out  of  great  sinners  ;  and 
the  memory  of  an  odious  and  conspicuous  sin  like 
this  may  sometimes  lend  a  passionate  force  to  sub- 
sequent devotion  and  keep  alive  for  a  lifetime  the 
sense  of  personal  unvvorthiness. 

3.  The  last  scene  in  the  evolution  of  this  vision, 
which  was  surely  more  than  a  vision,  was  the  Vision 
of  Grace.  One  of  the  fiery  attendants,  who  hovered 
on  quivering  wing  ready  to  execute  the  orders  of 
the  Divine  King,  receiving  a  command  by  some  un- 
explained mode  of  communication,  flew  to  the  altar, 
and,  taking  up  the  tongs,  seized  with  them  a  stone 
from  the  altar  fire.  It  was  neither  a  coal,  as  our 
rendering  gives  it,  nor  a  brand,  but  a  heated  stone, 
such  as  was  used,  and  is  used  at  the  present  day,  in 
the  East,  for  conveying  heat  to  a  distance  for  any 
purpose  for  which  it  might  be  required.  It  came 
from  the  altar:  it  contained  God's  fire,  and  God 
sent  it. 

The  purpose  for  which  it  was  required  on  this 
occasion  was  cleansing.  Of  cleansing  there  are  in 
Scripture  three  symbols.  The  simplest  is  water ; 
and  water  can  purify  many  things;  but  there  are 
some  things  which  water  cannot  cleanse.  A  stronger 
agent  is  required,  and  this  is  found  in  fire.  You 
must  fling  the  ore,  for  example,  into  the  fire,  if  you 
wish  to   extract  from  it  the  pure  gold.     There  is  a 


THE   PREACHER   AS  A    MAN  OF   GOD.  47 

third  symbol,  which  appears  in  the  New  Testament 
as  well  as  the  Old,  and  it  is  the  most  sacred  of  all. 
It  is  blood.  Water,  fire,  blood — these  three  mean 
the  same  in  Scripture.     In  this  case  it  was  fire. 

The  seraph  flew  with  the  hot  stone  and  laid  it  on 
the  lips  of  the  future  prophet.  Why  did  he  lay  it 
there?  Because  it  was  there  that  Isaiah  felt  his  sin 
to  be  lying.  He  had  said,  "  I  am  a  man  of  unclean 
lips."  The  fire  burned  the  sin  away.  So  the  ser- 
aph said,  speaking  in  God's  name,  "  Lo,  this  hath 
touched  thy  lips,  and  thine  iniquity  is  taken  away 
and  thy  sin  purged."  It  was  the  assurance  of  the 
Divine  forgiveness,  which  had  come  swift  as  a  ser- 
aph's flight  in  answer  to  Isaiah's  confession.* 

*  The  lips  of  Jeremiah  were  also  touched  in  his  call  by  the  hand  of 
God.  But  the  meaning  appears  to  have  been  different.  He  had  com- 
plained that  he  could  not  speak — that  he  was  tongue-tied.  The  touch 
of  the  Divine  hand  may  have  meant  that  the  restraining  cord  was 
loosed,  and  a  free  passage  made  for  the  utterance  of  what  he  had  to 
say.  The  words  which  accompanied  the  touch  suggest,  however,  a 
slightly  different  idea — "  Behold,  I  have  put  My  words  in  thy  mouth." 
The  difficulty  of  Jeremiah  was  not  exactly  that  of  Moses,  who,  when 
he  complained  that  he  could  not  speak,  meant  that,  never  having 
acquired  the  art  of  expressing  himself,  he  could  not  utter  what  he  had 
to  say,  even  though  he  was  full  of  matter.  This  was  the  natural 
difficulty  of  an  elderly  man  ;  for  the  art  of  expression  has  to  be 
acquired  in  youth.  But  the  difficulty  of  a  young  man  like  Jeremiah 
is  not  so  much  to  express  what  he  has  to  say  as  to  get  something 
worth  saying.  This  was  what  Jeremiah  complained  of  ;  ;mj  the  touch- 
ing of  his  lips  meant  that  God  was  putting  His  own  words  into  his 
mouth.  It  was  a  prom  se  that  the  well  of  ideas  in  his  mind  should  not 
run  dry,  but  that  God  would  give  him  such  a  revelation  of  His  mind  and 
will  as  would  supply  him  with  an  ample  message  to  his  age.  All  three 
cases  are  full  of  instruction  and  encouragement. 


48  THE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

Isaiah's  preparation  was  completed  in  these  three 
successive  phases  of  experience  ;  and  now  the  pur- 
pose was  disclosed  for  which  he  had  been  prepared. 
From  aloft — from  the  throne  high  and  lifted  up — 
came  the  question,  "  Whom  shall  I  send,  and  who 
will  go  for  us?  "  The  King  needed  a  inessenger  to 
bear  a  message  and  represent  Himself.  He  had 
chosen  Isaiah  to  bear  it ;  yet  He  did  not  thrust  the 
commission  on  him.*  He  did  not  need  to  do  so; 
for  Isaiah  had  passed  through  a  preparation  which 
made  him  not  only  thoroughly  able,  but  thoroughly 
willing.  He  had  been  lifted  out  of  time  into  eter- 
nity ;  and  in  this  one  hour  of  concentrated  experience 
he  had  both  died  and  been  born  again.  His  life 
had  been  undone  and  forfeited  ;  but  God  had  given 
it  back  to  him,  and  he  felt  that  now  it  was  not  his 
own.     He  was   thrilling  with   the  power  of  forgive- 

*"  After  passing  through  the  fundamental  religious  experiences  of 
forgiveness  and  cleansing,  which  are  in  every  case  the  indispensable 
premises  of  life  with  God,  Isaiah  was  left  to  him~elf.  No  direct  sum- 
mons was  addressed  to  him,  no  compulsion  was  laid  on  him  ;  but  he 
heard  the  voice  of  God  asking  generally  for  messengers,  and  he,  on  his 
own  responsibility,  answered  it  for  himself  in  particular.  He  heard  from 
the  Divine  lips  of  the  Divine  need  for  messengers,  and  he  was  immedi- 
ately full  of  the  mind  that  he  was  the  man  for  the  mission,  and  of  the 
heart  to  give  himself  to  it.  So  great  an  example  cannot  be  too  closely 
studied  by  candidates  for  the  ministry  in  our  own  day.  Sacrifice  is  not 
the  half-sleepy,  half-reluctant  submission  to  the  force  of  circumstance  or 
opinion,  in  which  shape  it  is  so  often  travestied  among  us,  but  the  reso- 
lute self-surrender  and  willing  resignation  of  a  free  and  reasonable  soul. 
There  are  many  in  our  day  who  look  for  an  irresistible  compulsion  into 
tlie  ministry  of  the  Church  ;  sensitive  as  they  are  to  the  material  bias  by 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    MAN  OF   GOD.  49 

ness,  and  the  impulses  towards  God — to  be  near 
Him,  to  serve  Him,  to  do  anything  for  Him — were 
now  far  stronger  than  his  shrinking  from  Him  had 
been  a  Httle  before.  Therefore  of  his  own  free  will 
and  choice  he  answered  the  Divine  question  with, 
"  Here  am  I,  send  me." 

Gentlemen,  I  have  gone  minutely  into  the  details 
of  this  scene  in  the  life  of  a  representative  preacher 
of  the  Old  Testament,  because  every  line  of  it  speaks 
to  the  deep  and  subtle  movements  of  our  own  ex- 
perience. What  is  the  inference  to  be  drawn  from 
it?  Is  it  that  at  the  commencement  of  a  preacher's 
career  there  must  be  a  call  to  the  ministry  distinct 
from  the  experience  of  personal  salvation  ?  This 
inference  has   often    been  drawn  ;    but   I   prefer,   in 

which  men  roll  off  into  other  professions,  they  pray  for  something  of  a 
similar  kind  to  prevail  with  tliem  in  this  direction  also.  There  are  men 
who  pass  into  the  ministry  by  social  pressure  or  the  opinion  of  the  circles 
they  belong  to,  and  there  are  men  who  adopt  the  profession  simply  be- 
cause it  is  on  the  line  of  least  resistance.  From  which  false  beginnings 
rise  the  spent  force,  the  premature  stoppages,  the  stagnancy,  the  aimless- 
ness  and  heartlessness,  which  are  the  scandals  of  the  professional  minis- 
try and  the  weakness  of  the  Christian  Church  in  our  day.  Men  who 
drifi  into  the  ministry,  as  it  is  certain  so  many  do,  become  mere  ecclesi- 
astical flotsam  and  jetsam,  incapable  of  giving  carrias^e  to  any  soul  across 
the  waters  of  this  life,  uncertain  of  their  own  arrival  anywhere,  and  of 
all  the  waste  of  their  generation,  the  most  patent  and  disgraceful.  God 
will  have  no  driftwood  for  His  sacrifices,  no  drift-men  for  His  ministers. 
Self-consecration  is  the  beginning  of  His  service,  and  a  sense  of  our  own 
freedom  and  our  own  responsibility  is  an  indispensable  element  in  the  act 
of  self-consecration." — G.  A.  Smith  :  Isaiali. 


50  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

the  meantime  at  least,  to  draw  a  wider  but,  I 
believe,  a  sounder  and  more  useful  inference.  It  is 
this  :  that  the  outer  must  be  preceded  by  the  inner  ; 
public  life  for  God  must  be  preceded  by  private  life 
with  God  ;  unless  God  has  first  spoken  to  a  man,  it 
is  vain  for  a  man  to  attempt  to  speak  for  God. 

This  principle  has  an  extensive  and  varied  appli- 
cation. 

It  applies  to  the  beginnings  of  the  religious  life.  I 
should  like  to  be  allowed  to  say  to  you,  gentlemen, 
with  all  the  earnestness  of  which  I  am  capable,  that 
the  prime  qualification  of  a  minister  is  that  he  be 
himself  a  religious  man — that,  before  he  begins  to 
make  God  known,  he  should  first  himself  know  God. 
How  this  comes  to  pass,  this  is  not  the  place  to 
explain.  Only  let  me  say,  that  it  is  more  than  the 
play  upon  us  of  religious  influences  from  the  outside. 
There  must  be  a  reaction  on  our  own  part — an  open- 
ing of  our  nature  to  take  in  and  assimilate  what  is 
brought  to  bear  on  us  by  others.  There  must  be 
an  uprising  of  our  own  will  and  a  deliberate  choice  of 
God.  Of  course  in  the  history  of  many  there  are, 
at  this  stage,  experiences  almost  as  dramatic  and 
memorable  as  this  scene  in  the  life  of  Isaiah  ;  and 
they  may  be  composed  of  nearly  identical  elements. 
In  some  haunt  of  ordinary  life — perhaps  in  the 
church  of  one's  childhood  or  in  the  room  consecrated 


THE   PREACHER    AS  A    MAN  OF   GOD.  51 

by  the  prayers  of  early  years — there  comes  a  sudden 
revelation  of  God,  which  transfigures  everything.  In 
this  great  light  the  man  feels  himself  to  be  like  an 
unclean  thing,  ready  to  be  condemned  and  anni- 
hilated by  the  presence  of  the  Thrice  Holy.  But 
then  ensues  the  wonderful  revelation  of  grace,  when 
God  takes  up  the  soul  in  despair  and  draws  it  to 
His  heart,  penetrating  it  with  the  sense  of  forgive- 
ness and  the  confidence  of  childhood.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  this  new-born  life  should  feel  itself  at 
once  dedicated  to  the  service  of  God.  I  heard  one 
of  our  most  rising  ministers  say  a  short  time  ago, 
that  he  knew  he  was  to  be  a  minister  on  the  very 
day  of  his  conversion,  though  at  the  time  he  was 
engaged  in  a  totally  different  pursuit. 

But  this  may  come  later;  and  it  may  be  the 
burden  of  another  great  moment  of  revelation.  For, 
as  I  have  hinted  already  in  this  lecture,  the  true  Chris- 
tian life  is  not  all  a  silent,  unmarked  growth  ;  it  has 
its  crises  also,  when  it  rises  at  a  bound  to  new  levels, 
where  new  prospects  unfold  themselves  before  it  and 
alter  everything.  There  are  moments  in  life  more 
precious  than  days,  and  there  are  days  which  we 
would  not  exchange  for  years.  Swept  along  with 
other  materials  into  the  common  receptacle  of 
memory,  they  shine  like  gold,  silver,  precious  stones 
among  the  wood,  hay,  stubble  of  ordinary  experi- 


52  THE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

ence.  It  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  one  such 
experience  may  do  to  direct  and  to  inspire  a  h"fe.  I 
believe  that  many  a  humble  minister  has  such  an  ex- 
perience hidden  in  his  memory,  which  he  may  never 
have  disclosed  to  anyone,  but  which  is  invested  for 
himself  with  unfading  splendor  and  authority,  and 
binds  him  to  the  service  of  God  till  his  dying  day.* 
But  this  principle,  which  we  have  drawn  for  our 
own  use  from  Isaiah's  call,  applies  not  only  to  the 
initial  act,  but  to  every  subsequent  detail  of  our  life. 
It  is  true  of  every  appearance  which  a  minister 
makes  before  a  congregation.  Unless  he  has  spent 
the  week  with  God  and  received  Divine  communica- 
tions, it  would  be  better  not  to  enter  the  pulpit  or 
open  his  mouth  on  Sunday  at  all.  There  ought  to 
be  on  the  spirit,  and  even  on  the  face  of  a  minister, 
as  he  comes  forth  before  men,  a  ray  of  the  glory  which 

*  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  ever  seen  an  entirely  satisfactory  state- 
ment of  what  constitutes  a  call  to  the  ministry.  Probably  it  is  one  of 
those  things  of  the  Spirit  which  cannot  be  mathematically  defined.  The 
variety  of  the  calls  in  Scripture  warns  us  against  laying  down  any  scheme 
to  which  the  experience  of  evi.ry  one  must  conf(jrm.  It  is  the  same  as 
with  the  commencement  of  the  spiritual  life,  where  also  the  work  of  tlie 
Spirit  of  God  overflows  our  definitions.  While  some  can  remember  and 
describe  the  whole  process  through  which  they  have  passed,  o  hers  who 
exhibit  as  undeniably  the  marks  of  the  Divine  handiwork  can  give  com- 
paratively Utile  account  of  how  it  took  place.  The  test  of  the  reality  of 
the  change  is  not  its  power  of  being  made  into  a  good  story.  In  the  one 
case,  however,  as  in  the  other,  a  conscientious  man  will  give  all  diligence 
to  make  his  calling  and  election  sure.  Excellent  chapters  on  the  subject 
will  be  found  in  Spurgeon's  Lectures  to  My  Students  and  Blaikie's  For 
the  Work  o/  the  Ministry, 


THE   PREACHER  AS  A    MAN  OF  GOD.  53 

was  seen  on  the  face  of  Moses  when  he  came  down 
among  the  people  with  God's  message  from  the 
mount. 

It  applies,  too,  on  a  larger  scale,  to  the  ministe- 
rial life  as  a  whole.  Valuable  as  an  initial  call  may 
be,  it  will  not  do  to  trade  too  long  on  such  a  mem- 
ory. A  ministry  of  growing  power  must  be  one  of 
growing  experience.  The  soul  must  be  in  touch 
with  God  and  enjoy  golden  hours  of  fresh  revelation. 
The  truth  must  come  to  the  minister  as  the  satis- 
faction of  his  own  needs  and  the  answer  to  his  per- 
plexities;  and  he  must  be  able  to  use  the  language 
of  religion,  not  as  the  nearest  equivalent  he  can  find 
for  that  which  he  believes  others  to  be  passing 
through,  but  as  the  exact  equivalent  of  that  which 
he  has  passed  through  himself.  There  are  many 
rules  for  praying  in  public,  and  a  competent  minis- 
ter will  not  neglect  them  ;  but  there  is  one  rule  worth 
all  the  rest  put  together,  and  it  is  this  :  Be  a  man  of 
prayer  yourself;  and  then  the  congregation  will  feel, 
as  you  open  your  lips  to  lead  their  devotions,  that 
you  are  entering  an  accustomed  presence  and  speak- 
ing to  a  well-known  Friend.  There  are  arts  of  study 
by  which  the  contents  of  the  Bible  can  be  made 
available  for  the  edification  of  others  ;  but  this  is  the 
best  rule:  Study  God's  Word  diligently  for  your 
own  edification  ;  and  then,  when  it  has  become  more 


54  THE    PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

to  you  than  your  necessary  food  and  sweeter  than 
honey  or  the  honey-comb,  it  will  be  impossible  for 
you  to  speak  of  it  to  others  without  a  glow  passing 
into  your  words  which  will  betray  the  delight  with 
which  it  has  inspired  yourself.* 

Perhaps  of  all  causes  of  ministerial  failure  the 
commonest  lies  here  ;  and  of  all  ministerial  qualifica- 
tions, this,  although  the  simplest,  is  the  most  trying. 
Either  we  have  never  had  a  spiritual  experience  deep 
and  thorough  enough  to  lay  bare  to  us  the  mysteries 
of  the  soul ;  or  our  experience  is  too  old,  and  we 
have  repeated  it  so  often  that  it  has  become  stale  to 

*  "  You  have  to  be  busy  men,  with  many  distractions,  with  time  not 
your  own  :  and  yet,  if  you  are  to  be  anything,  there  is  one  thing  you 
must  secure.  You  must  have  time  to  enter  into  your  own  heart  and  be 
quiet,  you  must  learn  to  collect  yourselves,  to  be  alone  with  yourselves, 
alone  with  your  own  thoughts,  alone  with  eternal  realities  which  are  be- 
hind the  rush  and  confusion  of  moral  things,  alone  with  God.  You  must 
learn  to  shut  your  door  on  all  your  energy,  on  all  your  interests,  on  your 
hopes  and  fears  and  cares,  and  in  the  silence  of  your  chamber  to  '  p  ssess 
yiiur  souls.'  You  must  learn  to  look  below  the  surface  ;  to  sow  the  seed 
which  you  will  never  reap  ;  to  hear  loud  voices  against  you  or  seductive 
ones,  and  to  find  in  your  own  heart  the  assurance  and  the  spell  which 
makes  them  vain.  What-ver  you  do,  part  not  with  the  inner  sacred  life 
of  the  soul  wh°reby  we  live  within  to  'things  not  seen,'  to  Christ,  and 
truth  and  immortality.  Your  work,  your  activity,  belong  to  earth  ;  no 
real  human  interest  nothing  that  stirs  or  attra'-ts  or  that  troubles  men  in 
this  scene  of  life,  ought  to  be  too  great  or  too  little  for  you,  Bui  your 
thoughts  belong  to  heaven  ;  and  it  is  to  that  height  that  they  must  rise, 
it  is  there  that  in  solitude  and  silence  they  must  be  rekindled,  and  en- 
larged, and  calmed,  if  even  activity  and  public  spirit  are  not  to  degener- 
ate into  a  fatal  forgetfulness  of  the  true  purpose  of  your  calling— a  forget- 
fulness  of  the  infinite  tenderness  and  delicacy,  of  the  unspeakable  sncred- 
nf.ss,  of  the  mysterious  issues,  which  belong  to  the  ministry  of  souls."— 
Dkan  Church. 


THE  PREACHER  ASA    MAN  OF  GOD.  55 

ourselves ;  or  we  have  made  reading  a  substitute  for 
thinking ;  or  we  have  allowed  the  number  and  the 
pressure  of  the  duties  of  our  office  to  curtail  our 
prayers  and  shut  us  out  of  our  studies ;  or  we  have 
learned  the  professional  tone  in  which  things  ought  to 
be  said,  and  we  can  fall  into  it  without  present 
feeling.  Power  for  work  like  ours  is  only  to  be 
acquired  in  secret ;  it  is  only  the  man  who  has  a  ^ 
large,  varied  and  original  life  with  God  who  can  go 
on  speaking  about  the  things  of  God  with  fresh 
interest ;  but  a  thousand  things  happen  to  interfere 
with  such  a  prayerful  and  meditative  life.  It  is  not 
because  our  arguments  for  religion  are  not  strong 
enough  that  we  fail  to  convince,  but  because  the 
argum.ent  is  wanting  which  never  fails  to  tell  ;  and 
this  is  religion  itself.  People  everywhere  can  appre- 
ciate this,  and  nothing  can  supply  the  lack  of  it. 
The  hearers  may  not  know  why  their  minister,  with 
all  his  gifts,  does  not  make  a  religious  impression  on 
them  ;  but  it  is  because  he  is  not  himself  a  spiritual 
power.* 

There  comes  to  my  mind  a  reminiscence  from 
college  days,  which  grows  more  significant  to  me 
the  longer  I  live.  One  Saturday  morning  at  our 
Missionary  Society  there  came,  at  our  invitation,  to 

* "  Habet  autem    ut    obedienter   audiatur    quantacunque    granditate 
dictionis  majus  pondus  vita  dicentis." — St.  Augustine. 


66  THE    PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

talk  to  us  about  our  future  life,  the  professor  who 
was  the  idol  of  the  students  and  reputed  the  most 
severely  scientific  of  the  whole  staff.  We  used  to 
think  him  keen,  too,  and  cynical  ;  and  what  we 
expected  was  perhaps  a  scathing  exposure  of  the 
weaknesses  of  ministers  or  a  severe  exhortation 
to  study.  It  turned  out,  on  the  contrary,  to  be 
a  strange  piece,  steeped  in  emotion  and  full  of 
almost  lyrical  tenderness  ;  and  I  can  still  remember 
the  kind  of  awe  which  fell  on  us,  as,  from  this  re- 
served nature,  we  heard  a  conception  of  the  minis- 
try which  had  scarcely  occurred  to  any  of  us  be- 
fore ;  for  he  said,  that  the  great  purpose  for  which 
a  minister  is  settled  in  a  parish  is  not  to  culti- 
vate scholarship,  or  to  visit  the  people  during  the 
week,  or  even  to  preach  to  them  on  Sunday, 
but  it  is  to  live  among  them  as  a  good  man,  whose 
mere  presence  is  a  demonstration  which  can- 
not be  gainsaid  that  there  is  a  life  possible  on 
earth  which  is  fed  from  no  earthly  source,  and 
that  the  things  spoken  of  in  church  on  Sabbath  are 
realities. 

Side  by  side  with  this  reminiscence  there  lives  in 
my  memory  another,  which  also  grows  more  beau- 
tiful the  more  I  learn  of  life.  It  was  my  happiness, 
when  I  was  ordained,  to  be  settled  next  neighbour 
to  an  aged  and  saintly  minister.     He  was  a  man  of 


THE   PREACHER   AS  A    MAN   OF   GOD.  57 

competent  scholarship,  and  had  the  reputation  of 
having  been  in  early  life  a  powerful  and  popular 
preacher.  But  it  Avas  not  to  these  gifts  that  he 
owned  his  unique  influence.  He  moved  through 
the  town,  with  his  white  hair  and  somewhat  staid 
and  dignified  demeanour,  as  a  hallowing  presence. 
His  very  passing  in  the  street  was  a  kind  of  bene- 
diction, and  the  people,  as  they  looked  after  him, 
spoke  of  him  to  each  other  with  affectionate  venera- 
tion. Children  were  proud  when  he  laid  his  hand 
on  their  heads,  and  they  treasured  the  kindly  words 
which  he  spoke  to  them.  At  funerals  and  other 
seasons  of  domestic  solemnity  his  presence  was 
sought  by  people  of  all  denominations.  We  who 
laboured  along  with  him  in  the  ministry  felt  that 
his  mere  existence  in  the  community  was  an  irre- 
sistible demonstration  of  Christianity  and  a  tower 
of  strength  to  every  good  cause.  Yet  he  had  not 
gained  this  position  of  influence  by  brilliant  talents 
or  great  achievements  or  the  pushing  of  ambition  ; 
for  he  was  singularly  modest,  and  would  have  been 
the  last  to  credit  himself  with  half  the  good  he  did. 
The  whole  mystery  lay  in  this,  that  he  had  lived  in 
the  town  for  forty  years  a  blameless  life,  and  was 
known  by  everybody  to  be  a  godly  and  prayerful 
man.  He  was  good  enough  to  honour  me  with  his 
friendship  ;  and  his  example  wrote  deeply  upon  my 


58     THE   PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

mind  these  two  convictions — that  it  may  some- 
times be  of  immense  advantage  to  spend  a  whole 
hfetime  in  a  single  pastorate,  and  that  the  prime 
qualification  for  the  ministry  is  goodness.* 

*  As  he  has  been  dead  for  several  years,  I  need  not  hesitate  to  give  the 
name  of  my  dear  and  honoured  friend — the  Rev.  James  Black,  of  Dun- 
nikier. 


LECTURE  III. 
THE  PREACHER  AS  A  PATRIOT 


LECTURE  III. 

THE   PREACHER   AS   A   PATRIOT. 

WE  have  committed  ourselves,  in  our  mode  of 
dealing  with  the  subject  of  these  lectures,  to 
the  guidance  of  Scripture  ;  and  I  have  already,  in 
the  opening  lecture,  alluded  to  the  doubt,  which 
might  arise  in  some  minds,  that  this  method  might 
carry  us  away  from  the  living  questions  of  the  pres- 
ent age.  But  long  experience  has  taught  me  to  be 
very  confident  in  this  method  of  study.  It  is  as- 
tonishing how  directly,  when  trusting  to  the  lead- 
ing hand  of  Scripture,  one  is  conducted  to  the 
heart  of  almost  any  subject,  and  how  frequently 
one  is  thus  compelled  to  take  up  delicate  aspects 
of  present  questions  which  one  would  otherwise 
timidly  avoid  ;  while  there  is,  besides,  this  other 
great  advantage,  that  one  can  always  go  forward 
with  a  firm  step,  having  at  one's  back  a  Divine  war- 
rant and  authority.  To-day  we  shall  have  an  illus- 
tration of  this  ;  for  the  method  which  we  are  obey- 
ing will  carry  us  straight  into  the  midst  of  the 
burning  questions  of  the  hour;  and  the  example  of 
the  prophets  will  press  on  our  attention  an  aspect 


62  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

of  ministerial  duty  which  the  times  are  urgently 
clamouring  for,  but  which  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to 
face.  In  our  last  lecture  we  were  occupied  with  the 
call  of  the  prophet  to  the  service  of  God  ;  to-day  we 
have  to  study  wherein  consisted  this  service  itself. 

Here  we  are  at  once  confronted  with  a  contrast 
between  the  work  of  Old  Testament  prophets  and 
that  of  modern  ministers,  to  which  it  is  by  no  means 
easy  to  adjust  the  mind.  Our  message  in  modern 
times  is  addressed  to  the  individual;  but  the  mes- 
sage of  the  prophets  was  addressed  to  the  nation. 
The  unit  in  our  minds  is  always  the  soul ;  we  warn 
every  man  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come  ;  we 
reason  and  wrestle  with  him  in  the  name  of  Heav- 
en ;  we  watch  over  the  growth  of  his  character; 
and  we  estimate  our  success  by  the  number  of 
individuals  brought  into  the  kingdom.  In  the 
prophets  there  is  a  complete  absence  of  all  this. 
They  are  no  less  in  earnest  ;  their  aim  is  equally 
clear  before  them  ;  but  the  unit  in  their  minds  is 
different :  it  is  the  Jewish  state,  or  at  least  the  city 
of  Jerusalem,  as  a  whole.  A  recent  commentator* 
on  Isaiah  has  raised  the  question,  whether  Isaiah 
has  a  gospel  for  the  individual.  He  makes  out 
that  he  has  ;  but  it  is  in  a  somewhat  round-about 
*  Rev.  G.  A.  Smith. 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    PATRIOT.  63 

way  ;  and  it  is  not  done  without,  to  some  extent, 
attributing  to  Isaiah  a  point  of  view  which  was  not 
his.  It  was  Christ  who  introduced  the  modern 
point  of  view.  He  was  the  discoverer  of  the  indi- 
vidual. It  was  He  who  tauglit  the  world  to  believe 
in  the  dignity  and  destiny  of  the  single  soul  ;  and 
He  trained  His  ministers  to  seek  and  save  it. 

Isaiah's  position,  however,  is  well  worth  studying, 
and  has  its  own  lesson  for  us.  Only  we  must  acknowl- 
edge it  to  be  what  it  really  is,  and  endeavour  to  place 
ourselves  on  his  standpoint.  To  him  the  New  Tes- 
tament position  was  no  more  possible  than  the  mod- 
ern view  of  ethics  was  to  the  ancient  philosophers  ; 
and  the  student  of  philosophy,  saturated  from  birth 
with  the  modern  ideas  of  freedom  and  individuality, 
has  an  exactly  similar  difficulty  to  overcome,  as  he 
reads,  for  example,  the  Republic  of  Plato,  where  the 
state  is  everything  and  the  individual  nothing. 

While  a  message  to  any  individual  is  rare  in  the 
prophetical  books,  that  which  we  come  upon  wher- 
ever we  open  them  is  a  patriotic  and  statesman- 
like appeal  on  the  condition  of  the  country.  The 
prophets  addressed  themselves  by  preference  to  the 
heads  and  representatives  of  the  people,  such  as 
kings,  princes  and  priests ;  because  the  power  to 
effect  changes  in  the  situation  of  the  country  rested 
in  their  hands.     But  they  also  took  advantage  of 


64  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

large  popular  gatherings,  and  in  some  conspicuous 
place,  such  as  the  city-gate  or  the  court  of  the  tem- 
ple, delivered  their  message,  which  thus  might 
reach  every  corner  of  the  land.  A  name  which 
they  delight  to  apply  to  themselves  is  Watchmen. 
As  the  watchman,  stationed  on  his  tower  over  the 
city-gate,  kept  guard  over  the  safety  of  the  place, 
giving  notice  when  danger  was  approaching  and 
summoning  the  citizens  to  defend  themselves,  so 
the  prophets  from  their  watch-tower — that  is,  the 
position  of  elevation  and  observation  which  inspira- 
tion gave  them — watched  over  the  weal  of  the 
state,  observing  narrowly  its  condition  within, 
keeping  their  eye  on  the  influences  to  which  it  was 
exposed  from  without,  and,  when  danger  threat- 
ened, giving  the  alarm.  Their  acquaintance  is  ex- 
traordinary with  the  state  of  every  part  of  the 
country ;  and  still  more  astonishing  is  their  knowl- 
edge of  surrounding  countries.  When  they  have  to 
speak  of  Moab  or  Edom,  they  seem  as  familiar  with 
the  towns  and  rivers,  the  customs  and  history  of 
these  countries,  as  with  those  of  Judah;  and  they 
appear  to  be  as  well  acquainted  with  what  is  going 
on  in  the  cities  on  the  Nile  or  the  Euphrates  as  with 
what  is  happening  in  Jerusalem.  No  home  secretary 
is  as  well  acquainted  with  the  internal  affairs  of  his 
own    country,   and    no    foreign    secretary  with  the 


THE  PREACHER   AS  A    PATRIOT.  05 

affairs  of  foreign  countries.  It  was  their  vocation 
to  be  sensitively  alive  to  all  the  influences,  near  or 
remote,  by  which  their  native  land  could  be  affected. 

The  contents  of  the  prophetic  writings,  notwith- 
standing their  variety,  easily  fall  into  a  few  great 
masses.  The  chief  are  these  three — Criticism,  De- 
nunciation and  Comfort. 

I.  There  is  a  great  mass  of  what  may  be  called 
Criticism.  Standing  on  their  watch-tower  and  turn- 
ing their  observation  on  the  internal  condition  of  the 
state,  the  prophets  could  nearly  always  discern  dis- 
eased symptoms  in  the  body  corporate,  and  it  was 
their  duty  to  point  them  out.  So  Isaiah  commences 
his  prophecies  :  "  The  whole  head  is  sick,  and  the 
whole  heart  faint.  From  the  sole  of  the  foot  even 
unto  the  head  there  is  no  soundness  in  it  ;  but 
wounds,  and  bruises,  and  putrifying  sores  :  they 
have  not  been  closed,  neither  bound  up,  neither 
mollified  with  ointment."  And  he  thus  gives  ex- 
pression to  the  obligation  which  was  laid  on  him  to 
make  these  discoveries  known  :  "  Cry  aloud,  spare 
not,  lift  up  thy  voice  like  a  trumpet,  and  show  My 
people  their  transgression,  and  the  house  of  Jacob 
their  sins." 

The  sins  which  the  prophets  had  to  reprehend 
were  pretty  uniform  all  through  the  prophetic  pe- 


66  THE    PREACHER   AND    HIS  MODELS. 

riod  ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  compare  them  with 
those  by  which  our  own  age  is  afflicted.  There  is 
no  school  in  which  the  conscience  can  be  so  well 
educated  to  a  sense  of  public  sin  as  in  the  writings 
of  the  prophets. 

The  root  evi.)  ^yas  always  Idolatry.  The  nation 
was  continually  falling  away  from  the  worship  of  the 
true  God  to  idols,  or  at  least  the  worship  of  other 
deities  was  incorporated  with  that  of  Jehovah.  This 
was  always  both  a  symptom  of  advanced  degrada- 
tion and  the  head  and  fountain  of  other  evils  of  the 
worst  kind.  All  the  prophets  attack  it  with  all  the 
weapons  in  their  armoury — with  hot  indignation  and 
close  argument  and  scalding  tears.  Isaiah  is  re- 
markable for  attacking  it  with  raillery  and  sarcasm. 
He  takes  his  readers  into  the  idol  workshop  and 
details  the  process  of  their  manufacture.  He  shows 
us  the  workmen,  surrounded  with  their  plates  of 
metal  and  logs  of  wood,  out  of  which  the  god  is  to 
be  fashioned,  and  busy  with  their  files  and  planes, 
their  axes  and  hammers,  putting  together  the  help- 
less thing.  The  idolmaker,  he  says,  has  a  fine  ash 
or  oak  or  cedar-tree,  and  makes  a  pretty  idol  with 
it  ;  but  with  the  same  wood  he  lights  his  fire  and 
cooks  his  dinner — "  He  burneth  part  thereof  in  the 
fire  ;  with  part  thereof  he  eateth  flesh  ;  he  roasteth 
roast  and  is  satisfied  ;  yea,  he  warmeth  himself  and 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    PATRIOT.  67 

saith,  Aha,  aha,  I  am  warm,  I  have  seen  the  fire  ; 
and  the  residue  thereof  he  maketh  a  god,  even  his 
graven  image  ;  he  falleth  down  unto  it  and  wor- 
shippeth  it  and  prayeth  unto  it,  and  saith,  DeHver 
me,  for  thou  art  my  god." 

Closely  associated  with  idola*-ry  vas  Luxury.  So 
successful  to  our  minds  is  the  polemic  of  a  prophet 
like  Isaiah  against  idolatry  that  the  wonder  to  us  is 
that  it  was  ever  necessary  ;  and,  indeed,  there  are 
few  things  more  puzzling  to  the  ordinary  reader  of 
Scripture  than  the  constant  lapses  of  the  people  of 
God  into  idolatry.  How  could  the}',  knowing  the 
true  God,  exchange  a  worship  so  rational  and  ele- 
vated for  the  worship  of  stocks  and  stones?  The 
explanation  is  a  simple  but  a  humilitating  one.  The 
worship  of  these  foreign  deities  was  accompanied 
with  sensual  excesses,  which  appealed  to  the  strong- 
est elementary  passions  of  human  nature.  Feasts, 
dances  and  drunken  orgies  formed  part  of  the  wor- 
ship of  Baal  and  the  other  Canaanite  divinities. 
Idolatry  in  Israel  was  never  due  to  theoretic 
changes  of  opinion  ;  it  was  only  the  way  in  which 
an  outbreak  of  laxity  and  luxury  manifested  itself. 
Its  equivalent  in  our  day  would  be  an  excessive 
development  of  the  passion  for  amusement  and  ex- 
citement, destroying  the  dignity  and  seriousness 
of    life.       The    wealthy    and     fashionable     classes 


68  THE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

led  the  way,  as  they  generally  do  in  periods  of 
moral  retrogression ;  and  the  worst  symptom  of 
all  was  when  the  womanhood  of  the  country  sur- 
rendered itself  to  the  prevailing  tendencies.  This 
last  feature  of  degradation  had  developed  itself  in 
Isaiah's  day  ;  and  he  attacks  it  with  a  strange  com- 
bination of  humour  and  moral  indignation:  "Be- 
cause the  daughters  of  Jerusalem  are  haughty,  and 
walk  with  outstretched  neck  and  wanton  eyes, 
walking  and  mincing  as  they  go,  making  a  tinkling 
with  their  feet,  therefore  .  .  .  the  Lord  will  take 
away  the  bravery  of  their  tinkling  ornaments  about 
their  feet,  and  their  cauls  and  their  round  tires  like 
the  moon,  the  chains  and  the  bracelets  and  the 
mufflers,  the  bonnets  and  the  ornaments  of  the  legs 
and  the  headbands,  the  tablets  and  the  earrings, 
the  rings  and  nose  jewels,  the  changeable  suits  of 
apparel  and  the  mantles  and  the  wimples  and  the 
crisping  pins,  the  glasses  and  the  fine  linen,  and  the 
hoods  and  the  veils ;  and  it  shall  come  to  pass  that 
instead  of  sweet  smell  there  shall  be  stink,  and  in- 
stead of  a  girdle  a  rent,  and  instead  of  well-set  hair 
baldness,  and  instead  of  a  stomacher  a  girdle  of 
sackcloth,  and  burning  instead  of  beauty." 

Then  there  was  Oppression.  Excessive  luxury  in 
the  upper  classes  is  usually  accompanied  with  mis- 
ery among  those  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  social 


THE   PREACHER   AS  A    PATRIOT.  69 

scale  ;  because  the  rich  in  such  a  state  of  society 
are  heartless,  and  not  only  neglect  the  poor,  but 
oppress  them.  The  prophets  are  full  of  the  wrongs 
inflicted  on  the  weak  by  the  powerful.  The  wealthy 
landowners  took  advantage  of  the  difficulties  of 
their  less  prosperous  neighbours  to  rob  them  of 
their  holdings  and  remove  the  ancient  landmarks  ; 
and  the  courts  of  law  were  so  corrupt  that  those  who 
could  not  bribe  the  occupants  of  the  chair  of  jus- 
tice had  no  chance  of  redress.  The  spirit  of  the 
constitution  was  so  far  violated  that  the  rich  held 
their  own  fellow-countrymen  in  slavery,  and  did 
not  even  give  them  the  advantage  of  the  year  of 
jubilee.  Many  a  page  of  the  writings  of  the  proph- 
ets looks  like  a  programme  for  the  reform  of  abuses 
with  which  we  are  too  familiar  in  our  own  civilisa- 
tion. "  Woe,"  says  Jeremiah,  "  to  him  that  build- 
eth  his  house  by  unrighteousness  and  his  chambers 
by  wrong  ;  that  useth  his  neighbour's  services  with- 
out wages  and  giveth  him  not  for  his  work." 

Last  of  all  there  was  Hypocrisy.  In  spite  of 
these  sins,  crying  to  Heaven,  there  was  seldom  any 
lack  of  religiosity  or  the  outward  forms  of  religion. 
Religion  was  divorced  from  morality,  and  ritual 
was  substituted  for  righteousness.  There  is  no 
commoner  or  weightier  burden  in  the  prophets  than 
this.     It  is  on  this  subject  that  Isaiah  lets  loose  the 


70  THE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

whole  force  of  his  prophetic  soul  in  his  very  first 
chapter,  where  there  is  a  truly  appalling  picture 
of  the  combination  of  religious  rites  the  most  mul- 
tiplied with  moral  abuses  the  most  clamant :  "  To 
what  purpose  is  the  multitude  of  your  sacrifices  to 
Me  ?  saith  the  Lord.  I  am  full  of  the  burnt-offer- 
ings of  rams  and  the  fat  of  fed  beasts  ;  and  I  de- 
light not  in  the  blood  of  bullocks  or  of  rams  or  of 
he-goats.  When  ye  come  to  appear  before  Me,  who 
hath  required  this  at  your  hands,  to  tread  My  courts? 
Bring  no  more  vain  oblations;  incense  is  an  abomi- 
nation unto  Me;  the  new  moons  and  Sabbaths,  the 
calling  of  assemblies,  I  cannot  away  with  ;  it  is  in- 
iquity, even  the  solemn  meeting.  Your  new  moons 
and  your  appointed  feasts  My  soul  hateth  ;  they 
are  a  trouble  unto  Me  ;  I  am  weary  to  bear  them. 
And,  when  ye  spread  forth  your  hands,  I  will  hide 
Mine  eyes  from  you  ;  yea,  when  ye  make  many 
prayers,  I  will  not  hear.  Your  hands  are  full  of 
blood.  Wash  you  ;  make  you  clean;  put  away  the 
evil  of  your  doings  from  before  Mine  eyes  ;  cease  to 
do  evil ;  learn  to  do  well ;  seek  judgment  ;  relieve 
the  oppressed;  judge  the  fatherless;  plead  for  the 
widow." 

Thus  did  these  watchmen  search  out  the  moral 
and  religious  condition  of  the  people  to  the  very 
bottom  and,  in  the  most  expressive  language,  bring 


THE  PREACHER   AS  A    PATRIOT.  n 

home  to  their  fellow-countrymen  how  they  stood  in 
the  eyes  of  God. 

2.  A  second  large  mass  of  the  prophetic  writings 
is  occupied  with  Denunciation,  or  the  prediction  of 
calamities  about  to  come  as  the  punishment  of  sin. 
As  sure  as  the  prophets  were  that  the  God  of  the 
universe  was  a  righteous  God,  so  certain  were  they 
that  the  public  sins  which  they  exposed  would  bring 
down  the  wrath  of  Heaven  ;  for  '*  though  hand  join 
in  hand,  the  wicked  shall  not  be  unpunished." 

The  instruments  of  punishment  were  not  far  to 
seek.  Israel  was  surrounded  by  nations  which  en- 
tertained towards  her  feelings  of  bitter  hostility  and 
needed  only  the  slightest  provocation  to  attack  her. 
Such  were  Edom  and  Moab,  Philistia  and  Syria. 
But,  above  all,  she  was  hemmed  in  on  both  sides 
by  great  and  warlike  powers — Egypt  on  the  one 
hand  and  Assyria  or  Babylonia  on  the  other.  These 
were  incessantly  watching  each  other,  and,  in  doing 
so,  they  had  to  look  across  Israel.  She  lay  in  the 
way  which  the  one  had  to  take  in  order  to  get  at 
the  other.  The  secular  historian  would  say  that 
she  could  not  but  fall  sooner  or  later  into  the  hands 
of  the  one  or  the  other,  and  that  she  would  proba- 
bly pass  frequently  from  hand  to  hand.  But  to  the 
prophets  these  warlike  powers  were  the  scourges  in 
God's  hand  to  punish  the  sins  of  His  people ;  and, 


72  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

looking  outwards  from  their  watch-tower,  after  ex- 
posing the  sins  within  the  state,  they  announced 
that  the  storm-cloud  of  calamity  was  rising  from 
this  quarter  or  that  long  before  any  suspicion  of 
it  had  dawned  on  the  citizens  themselves.  Jehovah 
turns  the  hearts  of  kings  and  peoples  as  the  rivers 
of  water,  and  He  stirred  up  these  hostile  nations 
when  His  people  were  in  need  of  chastisement ;  He 
could  wield  their  power  as  the  axe  which  assails  a 
tree  is  wielded  by  the  woodman  ;  He  could  call  the 
mightiest  conqueror  to  serve  His  secret  purposes, 
as  a  man  calls  a  dog  to  his  foot.*  They  did  not 
know  that  they  were  being  thus  used.  They  had 
their  own  designs,  and  their  hatred  and  cruelty  to- 
wards God's  people  were  real  enough.  They  were 
even,  after  doing  God's  work  on  His  people,  to  be 
punished  in  turn  for  the  animosity  and  violence  with 
which  they  performed  it.  But  in  the  meantime  the 
will  of  Jehovah  was  accomplished,  and  the  disci- 
pline of  His  providence  wreaked  on  the  sins  of  the 
nation. 

3.  The  third  great  element  in  these  books  is 
Comfort.  Not  unfrequently,  in  delivering  these 
predictions  of  approaching  calamity,  the  prophets 
had  to  put  themselves  into  opposition  to  popular 
forms  of  patriotism  and  incur  the  danger  of  being 

*  These  are  Isaiah's  images. 


THE    PREACHER   AS  A    PATRIOT.  73 

regarded  as  enemies  of  their  country.  This  was  es- 
pecially the  case  with  Jeremiah,  who  was  burdened 
all  his  life  with  the  sad  task  of  proclaiming  that  the 
time  for  repentance  was  past,  and  the  Jewish  state, 
with  its  capital,  must  be  destroyed.  When  the 
enemy  was  before  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  and  the 
heads  of  the  state  were  rallying  the  citizens  to  the 
last  and  most  sacred  duty  of  defending  their  hearths 
and  altars,  he  had  still  to  predict  that  resistance 
was  useless ;  and  he  was  imprisoned  as  a  traitor, 
because  his  words  were  disheartening  the  soldiers. 
When  at  last  the  city  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
enemy,  he  was  set  free  from  imprisonment  and 
loaded  with  honours  by  the  conqueror  as  one  who 
had  been  a  valuable  ally.  Never  was  a  position 
more  equivocal  occupied  by  a  patriot.  Yet  never 
has  there  beaten  in  a  human  breast  a  heart  more 
patriotic  than  Jeremiah's.  Patriotism,  strong  as  a 
man's  passion  and  tender  as  a  woman's  love,  is  the 
keynote  of  every  chapter  of  his  prophecies.  This  is 
characteristic  of  all  the  prophets.  They  loved  Is- 
rael, and  especially  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  with  an 
ardour  of  affection  such  as  has  rarely,  if  ever,  been 
bestowed  on  any  other  country  or  city  on  earth. 
There  was  something  natural  in  this  passion  ;  for 
Palestine  was  a  lovely  country,  whose  fruitful  plains 
and    picturesque  valleys   and  vine-clad    hills  easily 


74  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

captivated  the  hearts  of  its  inhabitants;  and  Je- 
rusalem was  a  city  beautiful  for  situation.  But  this 
natural  attachment  was  transfigured  into  a  higher 
sentiment.  Jerusalem  was  the  hearth  and  sanctu- 
ary of  the  true  religion.  The  country  was  dear  to 
the  hearts  of  the  prophets,  because  it  had  been 
specially  chosen  by  Jehovah  as  a  home  for  His 
people,  in  which  they  might  work  out  their  destiny. 
The  people  who  inhabited  this  country  were  to  be 
married  to  Jehovah  ;  He  was  to  penetrate  them 
with  His  spirit  and  character  ;  and  in  them  and  their 
seed  all  nations  of  the  earth  were  to  be  blessed. 

To  this  sublime  conception  of  the  nation  the 
hearts  of  all  the  prophets  clung.  However  un- 
worthy of  it  their  own  generation  might  be,  they 
believed  in  the  inexhaustible  resources  of  their  race, 
which  was  immortal  till  its  destiny  was  accomplished. 
It  was  this  faith,  inspiring  Isaiah,  which  enabled 
him  to  rally  his  fellow-countrymen  to  the  defence 
of  Jerusalem,  when,  according  to  all  human  proba- 
bilities, extinction  stared  it  in"  the  face.  And  even 
Jeremiah,  though  he  had  to  predict  the  ruin  of  the 
city  of  his  heart,  never  dreamed  for  a  moment  that 
its  career  was  at  an  end  ;  but,  looking  beyond  the 
calamities  of  the  immediate  future,  he  predicted 
that  God  would  restore  the  captivity  of  His  people 
and  yet  make  Zion  a  praise  in  the  earth.     It  was, 


THE   PREACHER   AS  A    PATRIOT.  75 

indeed,  in  times  of  calamity  and  suffering  that  the 
patriotism  of  the  prophets  burned  most  ardently. 
It  was  then  that,  speaking  in  God's  name,  they 
poured  out  on  the  stricken  city  the  affection  which 
breathes  in  such  wonderful  words  of  Isaiah  as  these  : 
"  Can  a  mother  forget  her  sucking  child  that  she 
should  not  have  compassion  on  the  son  of  her 
womb?  Yea,  they  may  forget:  yet  will  I  not 
forget  thee.  Behold,  I  have  graven  thee  upon  the 
palms  of  My  hands ;  thy  walls  are  continually  be- 
fore Me."  The  second  half  of  Isaiah,*  addressed 
to  the  exiles  in  Babylon,  overflows  with  such  out- 
bursts of  tenderness  ;  and,  although  there  is  obvi- 
ously a  love  in  them  which  is  more  than  human, 
yet  the  Divine  love  could  not  have  found  an  outlet 
and  a  voice  for  itself  except  through  a  human  heart 
of  the  most  exquisite  sensibility  and  passionate  pa- 
triotism.f  The  prophets,  who  could  scourge  the 
people  in  the  height  of  their  prosperity  and  wanton- 
ness with  words  which  smote  like  swords,  became 
in  the  days  of  calamity  the  assiduous  ministers  of 
comfort,   pouring  balm   into    the    wounds   of  their 

*  For  our  purpose  in  these  lectures  it  is  of  no  consequence  whether 
there  were  two  Isaiahs  or  only  one.  We  are  seeking:  to  ascertain  the 
leading  features  of  the  prophets  ;  and,  if  we  attribute  to  one  person 
qualities  which  were  distributed  among  two,  this  will  matter  little,  as 
I'.ng  as  thr-y  are  typical  qualities  of  the  prophet. 

t  "The  tale  of  the  Divine  Pity  was  never  yet  believed  from  lips  that 
were  not  felt  to  be  moved  by  human  pity." — George  Eliot. 


76  THE   PREACHER   AND    HIS   MODELS. 

country  and  never  allowing  the  daughter  of  Zion  to 
despair  of  her  future. 

It  was  then  especially  that  they  cultivated  the 
most  remarkable  of  all  the  elements  of  prophecy — 
the  hope  of  the  Messiah.  Tragic  as  was  the  failure 
of  the  prophets  themselves  to  raise  the  nation  to 
the  elevation  which  they  saw  so  clearly  to  be  her 
destiny,  they  all  believed  that  what  they  had  failed 
to  do  would  yet  be  done,  and  that  there  would  yet 
be  a  Jerusalem  bright  and  glorious  as  a  star,  and 
serving  as  the  star  of  hope  to  all  the  peoples  of  the 
earth.  Their  confidence  in  this  did  not  rest  solely 
on  the  will  and  power  of  God  in  general ;  it  was 
guaranteed  to  them  by  the  belief,  which,  under  dif- 
ferent forms,  they  all  cherished,  and  taught  their 
countrymen  to  cherish,  that  in  the  womb  of  the  na- 
tion there  lay  One,  to  be  born  in  due  time,  endowed 
U'ith  powers  far  greater  than  their  own,  who  would 
take  up  the  task  which  each  of  them  had  had  in  his 
turn  to  lay  by  unaccomplished,  and  carry  it  forward 
to  its  fulfilment — a  Child  of  the  nation  who  would 
unite  in  His  character  all  the  attributes  in  their 
fullest  perfection  which  the  nation  herself  ought  to 
have  possessed,  and  who,  though  standing  high 
above  His  fellow-countrymen,  would  yet  be  thor- 
oughly incorporated  with  them,  and,  taking  on  His 
shoulders  the  responsibility  of  their  destiny,  would 


THE   PREACHER    AS  A    PATRIOT.  77 

never  fail  to  be  discouraged  under  it,  but  bear  it 
victoriously  to  the  goal.  "  Unto  us  a  Child  is  born, 
unto  us  a  Son  is  given ;  and  the  government  shall 
be  upon  His  shoulder  ;  and  His  name  shall  be 
called  Wonderful,  Counsellor,  the  Mighty  God,  the 
Everlasting  Father,  the  Prince  of  Peace." 

Now,  gentlemen,  the  question  is,  How  far  the  as- 
pect of  the  prophetic  activity  which  we  have  con- 
sidered to-day  is  a  model  to  us? 

It  might  be  argued  that  this  is  a  stage  of  preach- 
ing which  has  been  superseded,  and  that  the  message 
of  ministers  ought  now  to  be  addressed  entirely  to 
individuals.  This  is  the  theory  of  preaching  on 
which  many  act,  without  perhaps  considering  how 
widely  it  differs  from  the  procedure  of  the  prophets. 
And  no  doubt  much  might  be  said  in  its  defence. 
It  was  a  vast  step  in  the  development  of  religion 
when  Jesus  turned  from  the  nation  to  the  individual 
and  taught  the  world  the  value  of  the  soul.  Here 
must  ever  now  lie  the  stress  of  Christian  preaching  ; 
the  preacher  is  not  worthy  of  the  Christian  name 
who  does  not  know  what  it  is  to  hunger  and  thirst 
for  the  salvation  of  individuals,  and  who  does  not 
esteem  the  salvation  of  even  one  soul  well  worth  the 
labour  of  a  lifetime. 

Still  it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  stage  through 


78  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

which  preaching  has  passed  can  ever  be  entirely  super- 
seded ;  and  we  may  well  hesitate  to  believe  that  the 
work  of  an  Isaiah  or  a  Jeremiah  is  not  still  work  for  us. 
This  doubt  is  further  strengthened  when  we  turn 
to  the  record  of  Christ's  own  preaching.  He  is  the 
final  standard  and  incomparable  model.  But,  though 
He  discovered  the  soul  and  taught  the  world  the 
value  of  the  individual,  His  preaching  was  not  ex- 
clusively directed  to  individuals.  It  had  a  public 
and  national  side.  .  He  cast  His  protection  over 
publicans  and  sinners,  not  only  because  they  were 
the  children  of  men,  but  also  because  they  were  the 
seed  of  Abraham  ;  He  submitted  His  claims  to  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  of  the  nation,  and,  when 
they  rejected  them.  He  directed  against  the  religious 
parties  the  thunderbolts  of  His  invective.  The  tears 
and  words  of  indescribable  tenderness  which  He 
poured  out  upon  the  city  where  He  was  about  to 
be  martyred  proved  that  the  patriotism  of  Isaiah 
and  Jeremiah  still  burned  in  His  heart  ;  and  He 
charged  His  apostles,  when  sending  them  forth  to 
evangelize  the  world,  to  begin  at  Jerusalem.* 


*  Not  to  mention  the  social  element  in  His  preaching;  comprehended 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  comparative  absence  of  the 
patriotic  element  from  apostolic  preaching  is  chiefly  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  apostles  were  missionaries  in  cities  and  countries  where  they  were 
strani,'ers.  In  some  respects  modern  ministers  in  settled  charges  are  liker 
the  prophets  than  the  apostles. 


THE   PREACHER  AS  A    PATRIOT.  79 

If  this  did  not  settle  the  question,  the  nature  of 
the  case  would  demonstrate  that  the  preacher's  vo- 
cation includes  a  message  to  the  community  as  well 
as  to  the  individual.  It  will  be  conceded  by  all  that 
the  preacher  exists  for  the  promotion  of  righteous- 
ness and  the  diminution  of  sin  in  the  world.  But 
sin  is  not  only  lodged  in  the  heart  of  the  individual : 
it  is  embodied  also  in  evil  customs  and  unjust  laws, 
for  which  the  community  is  responsible.  The  in- 
dividual is  largely  moulded  by  his  environment  ; 
but  this  may  either  be  so  favourable  to  goodness 
that  his  evil  tendencies  are  restrained  and  every- 
thing encourages  him  to  do  well,  or  so  evil  that  the 
worst  vices  are  easily  contracted,  while  every  step 
in  the  right  direction  meets  with  a  storm  of  oppo- 
sition. No  one  would  contend  that  the  chances  of 
a  soul  are  the  same  whether  it  lives  among  those 
who  watch  carefully  over  its  development  and  guide 
its  footsteps  in  the  paths  of  peace,  or  among  those 
whose  word  and  example  are  encouragements  to 
every  kind  of  sin.  Society  ought  to  be  a  kindly 
matrix  in  which  incipient  life  is  nurtured  into  health 
and  beauty  ;  but  it  may  be  a  malignant  nurse,  by 
whom  the  stream  of  life  is  poisoned  at  its  very 
source.  If  this  be  so,  then  it  is  as  reprehensible  in 
those  whose  vocation  is  to  watch  over  the  moral  and 
spiritual  development  of  their  fellow-men  to  be  in- 


80  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

different  to  the  conditions  by  which  life  is  surrounded 
as  it  would  be  discreditable  to  the  physicians  of  a 
city  swept  year  after  year  by  pestilence,  if  they  took 
no  interest  in  the  insanitary  conditions  to  which  the 
epidemic  was  due,  but  lazily  contented  themselves 
with  curing  their  own  patients. 

We  seem  to  have  arrived  at  precisely  the  point 
in  the  Church's  history  when  her  mind  and  con- 
science are  to  awake  to  this  aspect  of  her  duty. 
One  of  the  most  eminent  members  of  the  English 
bench  of  bishops  said  recently,  that  the  social 
question  is  the  question  which  the  Christianity  of 
the  present  day  has  to  solve  ;  and  this  sentiment  is 
being  echoed  in  every  quarter.  Strange  it  is  how 
age  after  age  one  word  of  the  message  of  Chris- 
tianity after  another  lays  hold  of  the  Christian  mind 
and  becomes  for  a  time  the  watchword  of  progress. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  is  the  word  for 
our  age.  The  extraordinary  response  given  through- 
out the  civilised  world  to  General  Booth's  In  Dark- 
est England  ^rovQs  how  deeply  the  conscience  of  the 
world  is  being  stirred  by  the  misery  and  degradation 
of  the  outcasts  of  society. 

General  Booth's  book,  and  other  books  and  pam- 
phlets like  it,  have  brought  home  to  us  the  fact, 
that  at  the  base  of  our  civilisation  there  is  swelter- 
ing a  mass  of  sin  and  misery,  which  is  not  less  a  re- 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    PATRIOT.  81 

proach  to  Christianity  than  were  the  publicans  and 
sinners  to  the  religion  of  the  contemporaries  of 
Christ ;  because,  though  the  Church  may  not,  like 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  despise  and  hate  these 
outcasts,  it  has  not  yet  coped  effectually  with  the 
problem  of  their  condition ;  and  perhaps  their 
numbers  are  increasing  rather  than  diminishing. 
There  are  sections  of  the  community  in  which  the 
conditions  of  existence  are  so  evil  that  childhood  is 
plunged,  almost  as  soon  as  it  is  born,  into  an  element 
of  vice  and  crime,  the  bloom  of  modesty  is  rudely 
rubbed  off  the  soul  of  womanhood,  and  manhood  is 
so  beset  with  temptation  that  escape  is  well-nigh 
impossible.  Can  anyone  doubt  that  an  Isaiah  or  a 
Jeremiah  would,  in  such  a  state  of  society,  have 
lifted  up  his  voice  like  a  trumpet  and  cast  the  con- 
dition of  these  lost  children  of  our  people  in  the 
face  of  the  luxurious  rich,  and  especially  of  the  pro- 
fessors of  religion  ?  And  is  it  less  obvious  that  this 
is  still  the  duty  of  the  modern  pulpit  ? 

It  cannot,  indeed,  be  said  with  truth,  that  the 
Church  has  not  faced  the  problem.  There  is  one 
of  the  causes  of  social  misery,  and  that  the  very 
chief,  against  which  the  Church,  especially  in  your 
country,  has  nobly  asserted  herself.  Drink  is  the 
cause  to  which  magistrates  and  judges,  and  all  who 
are  brought  directly  into  contact  with  the  fallen  and 


82  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

.  _ 

criminal  classes,  attribute  three-fourths  of  the  evils 
of  society.  Drink  is  the  despair  of  every  Christian 
worker  who  has  ventured  down  among  the  pariahs 
of  our  civilisation.  Against  this  the  Churches  have 
not  been  inactive.  But  we  are  just  beginning  to 
acknowledge  that,  though  drunkenness  is  the  great 
cause  of  misery,  there  are  other  causes  behind  it 
which  must  likewise  be  coped  with.  Why  do  the 
people  drink  ?  This  question,  when  it  is  impartially 
considered,  will  bring  many  abuses  of  our  social  sys- 
tem into  view,  which  must  be  put  out  of  the  way  be- 
fore the  evils  of  drunkenness  can  be  stopped.  Ex- 
cessively prolonged  labour  exhausts  the  system  and 
makes  it  crave  for  artificial  stimulus.  Excessively 
low  wages,  with  no  prospect  of  rising  in  the  world, 
beget  a  spirit  of  recklessness,  which  makes  men 
ready  to  turn  to  anything  that  promises  to  bring 
a  gleam  of  sunshine  into  their  monotonous  lot.  Ill- 
furnished  and  insanitary  abodes  drive  forth  their  in- 
mates to  seek  the  brightness  and  comfort  of  the 
saloon.  These  are  specimens  of  the  new  questions 
which  demand  the  attention  of  those  who  feel  the 
reproach  of  our  defective  civilisation. 

There  is  one  type  of  remedy  which  the  Church 
has  liberally  supplied.  To  those  already  fallen  she 
has  extended  a  helping  hand.  The  Evangelical 
Revival  produced  a  spirit  of  philanthropy  which  has 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    PATRIOT.  83 

invented  schemes  for  the  relief  of  every  form  of 
human  woe  ;  and  these  have  multiplied  to  almost 
unmanageable  numbers.  But  we  are  beginning  to 
see  that,  multiply  them  as  we  may,  they  must  be 
totally  insufficient  as  long  as  the  causes  of  misery  are 
undealt  with.  If  the  causes  remain  as  strong  as 
ever,  new  victims  will  be  manufactured  as  fast  as 
philanthropy  can  rescue  those  already  made.  The 
time  has  come  to  ascend  higher  up  the  stream  than 
has  hitherto  been  done,  and  cut  it  off  at  its  source. 
In  other  words,  we  must  direct  the  whole  force  of 
Christian  philanthropy  to  the  stopping  of  the  causes 
of  social  misery. 

For  this  work  new  weapons  will  be  required  ;  and 
perhaps  the  principal  of  these  will  be  legislation. 
The  prophets  appealed,  as  I  have  said,  to  kings  and 
princes,  because  in  their  hands  lay  at  that  time  the 
force  of  government.  But  this  power  has  now  passed, 
and  is  daily  more  completely  passing,  into  the  hands 
of  the  people,  on  whom  lies  the  responsibility  which 
formerly  lay  elsewhere.  And,  if  we  are  to  follow 
in  the  footsteps  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  we  must 
teach  the  people  to  rise  to  their  responsibility  and 
make  use  of  the  weapon  which  time  has  put  into 
their  hands  for  altering  the  conditions  of  life.  They 
must  send  to  the  seats  of  authority,  both  in  the 
municipality  and  in  the  state,  men  of  public  spirit, 


84  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

who  will  act  not  for  their  own  interest  or  for  the 
interest  of  factions,  but  for  the  good  of  the  whole 
community  ;  and  they  must  see  to  it,  that  the  laws 
and  their  administration  are  such  as  will  make  evil- 
doing  difficult  and  well-doing  easy. 

Of  course  this  will  involve  conflict  with  those 
interests  which  are  vested  in  abuses  ;  for  there  are 
trades  which  flourish  in  the  poverty  of  the  poor  and 
even  the  vices  of  the  vicious.  These  enjoy,  in  many 
cases,  the  advantage  of  high  social  standing  ;  and 
many  of  the  organs  of  public  opinion  will  rally  to 
their  support.  But  the  Church  must  appeal  to  the 
Christian  conscience  and  summon  forth  the  resources 
of  Christian  virtue,  to  meet  this  new  phase  of  the 
task  which  has  been  appointed  her.  Christianity  has 
always,  and  especially  during  the  last  hundred  years, 
had  the  open  hand  of  charity  ;  but  she  will  need, 
during  the  next  hundred  years,  to  have  also  a  hand 
which  can  close  itself  firmly  over  the  instrument  of 
government,  and  make  use  of  it  as  a  lever  for  lift- 
ing out  of  the  way  many  great  obstacles  which  are 
keeping  back  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

I  am  quite  aware  of  the  dangers  of  this  new  de- 
parture which  I  am  advocating.  There  is  the  great 
danger  of  undervaluing  the  work  of  saving  individual 
souls.     There  is  the  danger  of  forsaking  the  Word 


THE   PREACHER   AS  A    PATRIOT.  85 

of  God  and  converting  the  pulpit  into  an  organ  of 
secular  discussion  ;  although,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  numerous  portions  of  the  Bible  which  di- 
rectly raise  the  discussion  of  social  problems  and, 
when  otherwise  applied,  can  only  be  interpreted  in 
a  more  or  less  unnatural  sense.  There  is  the  danger 
of  making  the  minister  the  mouthpiece  of  a  party. 
Christian  tact  and  discretion  will  be  necessary  at 
every  step.  But  surely  this  is  no  reason  for  declin- 
ing our  duty,  but  only  a  reason  for  bringing  out  all 
our  resources. 

One  consideration  which  simplifies  the  problem 
is,  that  it  is  not  so  much  the  place  of  the  minister 
to  intervene  in  special  questions  as  to  beget  in  his 
people  a  public  and  patriotic  spirit,  and  to  teach 
them  to  look  upon  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of 
citizenship  as  a  part  of  Christianity.  When  our 
people  have  been  brought  to  recognise  that  the  pub- 
lic weal  is  their  concern,  and  that  they  are  respon- 
sible for  the  state  of  society  and  the  conditions  of 
life,  they  can  be  left  to  themselves  to  choose  the 
right  men  to  support  the  right  measures.* 


*  For  example,  there  will  rarely  be  any  delicacy  at  the  time  of  an 
election  in  urging  on  the  people  that  it  is  their  duty  to  go  to  the  poll,  but 
it  will  nearly  always  be  an  indiscretion  to  indicate  from  i  he  pulpit  for 
whom  they  should  vote.  Very  often  good  causes  are  lost  or  long  de- 
layed, not  because  the  sentiment  of  the  electorate  is  opposed  to  them, 
but  because  large  numbers  are  too  apathetic  t  )  vote  at  all. 
7 


86  THE  PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

Here  we  can  build  on  a  natural  foundation.  It  is 
natural  for  a  man  to  be  attached  to  the  place  of 
his  birth  or  the  town  in  which  he  lives.  The  roots 
of  his  life  are  in  its  soil ;  his  interests  bind  him  to  it ; 
and,  if  he  be  at  all  divinely-souled,  its  traditions  and 
notable  names  cannot  fail  to  lay  hold  upon  his  heart. 
The  chances  which  a  city  has  of  getting  its  affairs 
well  attended  to  are  measured  by  the  number  of  its 
inhabitants  who  are  animated  with  such  sentiments. 
In  the  same  way,  it  is  natural  for  a  man  to  love  his 
country.  Some  countries  especially  have  the  power 
of  casting  such  a  spell  over  the  hearts  of  their 
children  as  binds  them  to  their  service.  Of  my 
country  this  might  be  said.  Small  as  it  is,  its  beauty, 
its  history  and  its  romantic  associations  wield  over 
the  hearts  of  its  inhabitants  an  extraordinary  attrac- 
tion. Perhaps  part  of  the  secret  may  lie  in  its  very 
smallness ;  for  feeling  contracts  a  passionate  force 
within  narrow  limits,  as  our  Highland  rivers  become 
torrents  within  their  rocky  beds.  Of  your  country 
also  it  might  be  said  for  different  reasons.  America 
stirs  patriotic  sentiment,  not  by  its  smallness,  but  by 
its  largeness  and  wonderful  variety ;  not  by  the 
memories  of  the  past,  but  by  the  boundless  possi- 
bilities of  the  future. 

These  sentiments  exist  in  the  minds  of  our  people 
already  ;  and  we  only  need  to  foster  them  and  im- 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A   PATRIOT.  87 

pregnate  them  with  a  Christian  element,  in  order  to 
produce  convictions  about  public  duty  which  would 
have  the  most  blessed  results.  We  might  train  our 
people  to  feel  keenly  the  woe  of  mankind  and 
especially  the  moral  blots  on  the  fair  fame  of  their 
own  city  or  country.  We  might  get  them  to  cherish 
a  high  ideal  of  what  the  place  of  their  abode  should 
be,  morally  and  spiritually,  and  of  what  their  country 
might  do  in  the  world.  In  Scotland  there  was  such 
an  ideal  once  :  the  eye  of  the  dying  Covenanter  saw, 
painted  on  the  mist  of  the  moorland,  the  vision  of 
a  consecrated  land  ruled  by  a  covenanted  king.*  In 
England  it  existed  once,  in  the  Puritan  days,  when, 
as  Richard  Baxter  says,  England  was  like  to  become 
a  land  of  saints,  a  pattern  of  holiness  to  the  world, 
and  the  unmatchable  paradise  of  the  earth.     You 

*  "  When  I  would  cast  my  mind  back  to  what  we  have  earned  and 
reaped  from  these  men,  it  strikes  me  perhaps  more  than  anything  which 
I  have  yet  named,  that  we  should  thank  them  for  the  passionate  quest  of 
a  glorious  ideal.  It  is  such  ideals,  even  when  they  are  unattainable, 
which  lift  up  the  character  of  men  and  nations.  I  think  that  no  wonhy 
historian  has  yet  been  found  to  tell,  as  it  ought  to  be  told,  how  much 
Scotland  owes  to  this  splendid  vision  which  these  men  sought,  the  vision 
of  a  consecrated  land  of  saints  ruled  by  a  covenanted  king,  loyal  to  Christ. 
It  hovered  before  the  rapt  eyes  of  these  saints  of  Scotland  until  it  well- 
nigh  turned  them  into  seers,  it  elevated  them  until  it  made  them  heroes, 
and  though  the  picture  seemed  to  fade  before  the  eyes  of  their  children, 
as  thousih  it  had  been  painted  by  the  morning  light  on  the  mist  of  their 
own  moorland,  still,  it  has  done  its  work,  for  it  has  contributed  mightily 
to  educate  the  hearts  of  Scotchmen.  But  has  it  so  faded  ?  Or  is  it  not 
simply  thrown  forward,  as  the  old  Jew  learned  to  throw  his  Messianic 
hopes  forward,  from  one  anticipated  Christ  to  another,  better  and  greater 
yet  to  come  ?" — J.  Oswald  Dykes,  D.D. 


88  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

had  it  in  America  once  :  when  your  fathers  landed 
in  the  Mayflozver,  they  were  seeking  not  merely  meat 
and  drink,  or  even  wealth  and  plenty,  but  a  home  in 
which  their  descendants  might  grow  up  in  freedom, 
virtue  and  religion.  We  must  get  that  ideal  back 
again,  if,  in  spite  of  railroads  and  industrial  armies 
and  wealth  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice,  we  are 
not  to  become  corrupt  and  ready  to  be  swept 
away  with  the  besom  of  destruction.  We  might 
train  every  man  on  whom  our  message  lays  hold  to 
live  with  the  conviction  that  it  is  his  duty,  before 
he  dies,  to  do  something  to  make  his  own  town 
more  beautiful,  his  country  happier,  and  the  world 
better. 

As  I  am  addressing  some  who  may  before  long 
be  wielding  a  great  influence,  let  me  add  one  sug- 
gestion. In  matters  such  as  I  have  been  speaking 
of  to-day  success  comes  to  the  man  who  has  a  pro- 
gramme. Now  is  the  time,  when  you  are  looking 
out  on  the  world  with  the  keen  eyes  of  youth,  to  note 
the  abuses  wdiich  need  correction  and  to  picture 
with  the  eye  of  the  imagination  the  improvements 
which  are  required  to  wipe  out  the  reproach  or  to 
elevate  the  reputation  of  your  country.  Fix  the 
vision  in  the  centre  of  your  mind  ;  keep  it  ever  be- 
fore you  ;  and  your  dream  may  change  to  a  reality 
which  will   modify  the  conditions  of  life  for  whole 


THE   PREACHER  AS  A    PATRIOT.  89 

generations  of  your  fellow-men.  What  could  be 
worthier  of  your  manhood  at  its  present  stage  than 
to  be  revolving  some  plan  for  the  benefit  and  honour 
of  your  country?  Even  if  it  should  never  come  to 
anything,  it  will  be  good  that  it  has  been  in  your 
heart.  But  there  is  nothing  else  which  is  more 
likely  to  come  to  something.  "  What,"  says  Alfred 
de  Vigny,  "  is  a  great  life  ?  It  is  a  thought  con- 
ceived in  the  fervent  mind  of  youth  and  executed 
with  the  solid  force  of  manhood." 


LECTURE  IV. 
THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  THE  WORD 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE   PREACHER   AS   A   MAN    OF   THE   WORD. 

GENTLEMEN,  in  the  lecture  before  last  I  spoke 
of  the  prophet's  call  to  the  service  of  God,  and 
in  the  last  lecture  of  the  work  itself  which  he  had 
to  do.  To-day  I  am  to  speak  of  the  instrument 
with  which  he  did  it. 

This  was  the  Word  ;  the  prophet  was  a  Man  of  the 
Word.  In  accomplishing  his  great  and  difficult 
work  he  wielded  no  other  weapon.  It  seems  the 
frailest  of  all  weapons  ;  for  what  is  a  word  ?  It  is 
only  a  puff  of  air,  a  vibration  trembling  in  the  at- 
mosphere for  a  moment  and  then  disappearing. 
But  so  might  one  speak  of  the  cloud  whose  rolling 
coils  of  vapour,  changing  every  moment,  seem  the 
least  substantial  of  all  things ;  yet  out  of  it  breaks 
the  forked  lightning,  which  rives  the  giant  of  the 
forest,  and  overturns  the  tower  which  has  defied 
ten  thousand  assailants,  and,  loosening  the  crag, 
sends  it  thundering  down  the  mountain  -  side. 
Though  it  be  only  a  weapon  of  air,  the  word  is 
stronger  than  the  sword  of  the  warrior.  Words 
have  overturned  dynasties  and  revolutionised  king- 


94  THK   P REACH ER    AND    HIS   MODELS. 

doms.  When  the  right  virtue  is  in  them,  they  out- 
last every  other  work  of  man.  Where  are  the  cities 
which  were  flourishing  when  David  sang?  where 
are  the  empires  whose  armies  were  making  the 
world  tremble  when  Isaiah  wrote  ?  Nineveh  and 
Babylon,  Tyre  and  Memphis — where  are  they?  But 
the  Psalms  of  David  still  delight,  and  the  wisdom 
of  Isaiah  still  instructs,  the  world. 

The  prophets  were  well  aware  of  the  temper  and 
force  of  this  weapon  which  they  wielded.  Jeremiah 
refers  with  especial  frequency  to  the  power  of  the 
word.  "  Is  not  My  word,"  he  asks,  "  like  a  fire, 
saith  the  Lord,  and  like  a  hammer  that  breaketh 
the  rock  in  pieces?"  When  putting  this  weapon 
into  his  hand,  the  Lord  said  to  him,  "  See,  I  have 
set  thee  over  the  nations  and  over  the  kingdoms,  to 
root  out  and  pull  down,  and  to  destroy  and  throw 
down,  and  to  build  and  to  plant."  How  was  one 
man  to  be  able  to  throw  down  and  build  up  king- 
doms ?  He  speaks  as  if  he  were  at  the  head  of  irre- 
sistible legions  and  equipped  with  all  the  enginery 
of  war.  But  so  he  was;  for  all  these  and  more  are 
in  the  word.  Such  military  notions  seem  to  have 
occurred  naturally  to  the  wielders  of  it.  Another 
of  them  says,  "  The  weapons  of  our  warfare  are  not 
carnal,  but  mighty  through  God  to  the  pulling  down 
of  strongholds,  casting  down  imaginations  and  every 


THE  PRE  A  CHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.     05 

high  thing  that  exalteth  itself  against  the  knowl- 
edge of  God,  and  bringing  into  captivity  every 
thought  to  the  obedience  of  Christ."  Yet  another 
of  them  says,  "The  word  of  God  is  quick  and  pow- 
erful, and  sharper  than  any  two-edged  sword." 
And  Isaiah  says,  in  the  name  of  the  Servant  of  the 
Lord,  "  He  hath  made  my  mouth  like  a  sharp  sword  ; 
in  the  shadow  of  His  hand  hath  He  hid  me,  and 
made  me  a  polished  shaft  ;  in  His  quiver  hath  He 
hid  me."  * 

The  word  of  the  prophets  has  two  aspects :  it  is, 
on  the  one  side,  a  Message  from  God,  and,  on  the 
other,  a  Message  tO-Men. 

I.  The  word  which  the  prophets  wielded  was  the 
word  of  God.  Herein  lay  the  secret  of  its  power. 
For  the  word  of  God  is  the  thought  of  God  ;  and 
this  is  more  ancient  than  the  stars  and  lies  more 
deeply  embedded  in  the  constitution  of  things  than 
the  roots  of  the  mountains  ;  it  is  the  prop  by  which 
the  universe  is  sustained.  God's  word  is  before  all 
things,  for  it  created  them  ;  and  his  thoughts  are 
the  rails  on  which  the  course  of  the  world  runs. 

It  was  the  privilege  of  the  prophets  to  approach 
so  near  to  God,  to  enter  so  completely  into  sympathy 


*The  Servant  of  the  Lord  is  a  prophet;  and  in  the  descriptions  of 
him  in  this  character  we  can  perhaps  best  see  what  was  Isaiah's  conception 
of  a  prophet.     See  especially  ch.  Ixi.  1-3. 


96  THE    PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

and  fellowship  with  Him,  and  to  know  so  clearly 
what  were  His  purposes,  that  their  own  thoughts  be- 
came identical  with  His;  and,  therefore,  Avhen  they 
spoke,  their  words  were  God's  words.  Not  only  do 
they  preface  many  of  their  utterances  with  "  Thus 
saith  the  Lord,"  but — what  is  far  more  strange — 
they  often  begin,  without  any  preface,  and  go  on 
speaking  in  the  first  person  singular,  when  not  the 
prophet  but  Jehovah  is  the  speaker  ;  as  if  their  per- 
sonality were  so  enveloped  in  His  as  to  disappear 
altogether.* 

But  this  remarkable  knowledge  of  the  thoughts 
of  God  was  not  given  to  the  prophets  for  themselves. 
The  philosopher  may  shut  himself  up  in  secret  to 
study  the  laws  of  the  universe  and  keep  his  conclu- 
sions to  himself;  and  even  the  poet  perhaps  may 
be  so  happy  in  his  own  vision  of  beauty  that  he 
does  not  care  to  utter  his  song  to  the  world  ;  but 
not  so  the  prophet.  He,  indeed,  was  also,  in  the 
strictest  sense,  an  original  thinker,  and  the  new  con- 
ceptions of  God  which  he  was  privileged  to  convey 
to  the  world  dawned  upon  his  own  mind  with  that 
secret  delight  which  makes  the  creative  thinker  feel 
himself  to  be 

"  Like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken." 

*  See  Ewald's  Introduction  to  The  Prophets. 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.     97 

One  of  the  prophets  gives  expression  to  this  secret 
joy  when  he  says,  "  Thy  words  were  found  and  I  did 
eat  them,  and  Thy  words  were  unto  me  the  joy  and 
the  rejoicing  of  my  heart  ;  "  and,  after  a  night  spent 
in  receiving  revelations,  he  says,  "  On  this  I  awaked 
and  beheld,  and  my  sleep  was  sweet  unto  me." 
But  the  knowledge  of  God's  mind  and  will  which  the 
prophets  obtained  was  not  for  themselves,  but  for 
others.  It  was  not  abstract  knowledge,  but  a  knowl- 
edge of  God's  will  about  the  course  of  history — 
about  "  what  Israel  ought  to  do."  It  was,  in  short, 
not  only  a  revelation,  but  a  message. 

Hence,  one  of  the  most  outstanding  characteris- 
tics of  the  prophets  was  the  sense  of  being  ambas- 
sadors charged  with  a  communication  which  they 
were  bound  to  deliver.  If  those  to  whom  they  were 
sent  with  it  welcomed  them,  good  and  well  ;  but,  if 
not,  they  were  not  absolved  from  their  duty.  The 
man  who  speaks  to  men  for  his  own  ends — to  obtain 
influence  in  the  management  of  their  affairs  or  to 
display  his  talents  and  win  a  name — will  go  on 
speaking  as  long  as  they  are  inclined  to  listen  ;  but, 
if  they  do  not  appreciate  his  efforts  or  if  he  wearies 
of  the  employment,  he  can  betake  himself  to  retire- 
ment and  be  heard  no  more.  But  a  prophet  could 
not  act  thus.  His  message  might  arouse  bitter  op- 
position,   and    often    did    so :  "  Woe    is    me,    my 


98  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

mother,"  exclaims  Jeremiah,  "  that  thou  hast  borne 
me  a  man  of  strife  and  a  man  of  contention  to  the 
whole  earth."  Gladly  would  he  have  withdrawn 
from  the  contest,  if  he  could,  and  sought  a  lodge  in 
some  vast  wilderness.  But  the  sense  of  being  a 
messenger  drove  him  on  :  "  Then  I  said,  I  will  not 
make  mention  of  Him  nor  speak  any  more  in  His 
name  ;  but  His  word  was  in  mine  heart  as  a  burning 
fire  shut  up  in  my  bones  ;  and  I  was  weary  of  for- 
bearing, and  I  could  not  stay." 

This  was  what  lent  the  prophets  the  wonderful 
courage  which  characterized  them.  They  forgot 
themselves  in  their  message.  The  fire  of  God  in 
their  bones  would  not  permit  them  to  hesitate. 
Whether  it  was  a  frowning  king  or  an  infuriated 
mob  the  prophet  had  to  brave,  he  set  his  face  like 
a  flint.  Comfort,  reputation,  life  itself  might  be  at 
stake  ;  but  he  had  to  speak  out  all  that  God  had 
told  him,  whether  men  might  bear  or  whether  they 
might  forbear. 

2.  The  other  aspect  of  the  prophets'  word  was 
that  it  was  a  Message  to  Men.  If,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  word  of  the  prophets  was  a  power  because  it 
was  the  word  or  thought  of  God,  it  depended,  on 
the  other  hand,  for  its  effect  on  becoming  a  word 
which  those  to  whom  it  was  communicated  could 
repeat  in   their  own  vocabulary  and   thereby  turn 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.     99 

into  a  thought  of  their  own  ;  for  it  was  only  when 
men's  minds  were  so  modified  by  the  prophets' 
words  that  they  began,  in  their  degree,  to  think  the 
thoughts  of  God,  that  the  prophetic  message  be- 
came an  influence  in  their  Hfe.  The  prophet  had, 
therefore,  to  stand  in  a  double  attitude,  and  a  dou- 
ble process  had  to  be  performed  in  his  mind.  He 
had,  in  the  first  place,  to  turn  himself  wholly 
round  to  God  and  away  from  the  world,  and  clear 
his  mind  of  everything  else,  that  he  might  re- 
ceive the  message  in  its  purity  ;  but  then  he  had, 
in  the  second  place,  to  turn  himself  round  towards 
men  and,  taking  their  circumstances  into  account, 
deliver  the  message  to  them  in  the  most  effective 
way.  He  had  first  to  allow  the  Divine  message  to 
master  him  ;  but  then  he  had  to  turn  upon  it  and 
master  it,  before  he  could  be  the  medium  by  which 
it  was  conveyed  to  others. 

The  prophets  had  to  go  amongst  men,  even  if  it 
were  at  the  risk  of  life,  and  deliver  the  Divine  mes- 
sage. They  had  to  use  every  device  to  make  it  tell- 
ing, striking  in  at  every  opportunity  and  giving  line 
upon  line,  precept  upon  precept,  here  a  little  and 
there  a  little.  They  did  not  disdain  the  homeliest 
means,  if  it  served  the  purpose.  A  prophet  would 
go  about  in  public  carrying  a  yoke  on  his  neck,  like 
a  beast  of  burden,  or  lie  a  whole  year  on  his  side, 


100  THE   PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

to  attract  attention  to  some  important  truth. 
More  than  once  we  find  a  prophet  setting  up  a  board 
in  the  market-place,  with  only  a  few  words  written 
on  it,  into  which  he  had  condensed  his  message, 
that  the  passers-by  might  read  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  it  was  appropriate,  they 
did  not  spare  themselves  the  trouble  of  cultivating 
the  graces  of  style  by  which  words  are  made 
attractive  and  impressive,*  The  prophetic  books 
are  almost  as  artistic  as  poems.  Their  literary  form 
is  not  exactly  poetry,  though  now  and  then  it 
crosses  its  own  boundary  and  becomes  poetical.  It 
is  a  kind  of  rhythmical  prose,  governed  by  laws  of 
its  own,  which  it  carefully  observes.  All  the  proph- 
ets are  not,  indeed,  equally  careful.  Some  of 
them  appear  to  have  been  too  completely  carried 
away  with  the  message  which  they  had  to  deliver  to 
think  much  of  the  way  of  delivering  it.  But  these 
were  not  the  strongest  of  the  prophets  ;  and  it  is 
worth  observing,  that  those  who  took  the  most 
pains  about  the  form  in  which  what  they  had  to  say 
was  couched  have  been  the  most  successful  proph- 

*"  Bonorum  ingeniorum  insignis  est  indoles,  in  verbis  varum  amare, 
non  verba.  Quid  enim  prodest  clavis  aurea,  si  aperire  quod  volumus  nun 
potest  ?  Aut  quid  obest  lignea,  si  hoc  potest,  quando  nihil  quasrimus, 
nisi  patere  quod  clausum  est  ?  Sed  quoniam  inter  se  habent  nonnullam 
similitudinem  vescentes  atque  discentes,  propter  fastidia  plurimorum 
etiam  ipsa  sine  quibus  vivi  non  potest  alinienta  condienda  sunt." — St. 
Augustine. 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.   101 

ets  in  this  sense,  that  they  have  been  most  read  by- 
subsequent  generations. 

At  the  head  of  them  all,  in  this  respect,  stands 
Isaiah.  If  the  book  of  an  ordinary  reader  of  the 
Bible  were  examined,  it  would  be  found,  I  imagine, 
that  Isaiah  is  thumbed  far  more  than  any  other 
portion  of  the  prophetical  writings  ;  and  this  is  due 
not  only  to  the  divinely  evangelical  character  of  his 
message,  but  also  to  the  nobly  human  style  of  his 
language.*  All  the  resources  of  poetry  and  elo- 
quence are  at  his  command.  Every  realm  of  nature 
ministers  to  his  stores  of  imagery  ;  and  his  language 
ranges  through  every  mode  of  beauty  and  sublimity, 
being  sometimes  like  the  pealing  of  silver  bells,  and 
sometimes  like  the  crashing  of  avalanches,  and 
sometimes  like  the  songs  of  seraphim.  He  is  gener- 
ally supposed  to  have  been  a  native  of  Jerusalem  and 
to  have  spent  his  life  within  its  walls.  So  identified, 
indeed,  is  he  with  it,  that  he  is  coming  to  be  called 
Isaiah  of  Jerusalem  ;  and  a  recent  expounder  of  his 
prophecies  says  that  Jerusalem  was  more  to  him 
than  Athens  to  Demosthenes,  Rome  to  Juvenal,  or 
Florence  to  Dante.  But,  at  some  period  of  his  life, 
he  must  have  had  ample  experience  also  of  a  coun- 
try life  ;  because  the  aspects  of  the  country  arc 
mirrored  in  his  pages  with  incomparable  charm. 

*  See  the  excellent  chapter  on  Isaiah's  style  in  Driver's  Isata/i. 


102  THE   P  HE  A  CHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

He  lets  us  see  nature,  as  it  existed  in  his  day,  both 
wild  in  the  forest  and  wilderness,  and  cultivated 
around  the  abodes  of  men  ;  and  he  paints  for  us  the 
figures  of  the  country  people  themselves  and  the 
labours  they  went  forth  to.  We  see  in  his  pages 
the  trees  of  the  wood  moved  by  the  wind  ;  the  wil- 
lows by  the  water-courses  ;  the  fresh  branches  sprout- 
ing from  the  stock  of  the  pollard  oak  or  terebinth. 
We  hear  the  doves  mourning  from  the  depths  of  the 
thicket,  and  see  the  roe,  chased  by  the  hunter,  dis- 
appearing within  its  shelter,  and  even  the  school- 
boy rifling  the  birds'  nests  so  ruthlessly  that  "  there 
was  none  that  moved  the  wing  or  opened  the  mouth 
or  peeped."  We  see  the  swarms  of  bees  and  flies  rest- 
ing on  the  branches  in  the  summer  heat ;  the  plough- 
share lying  in  the  furrow;  the  tow  and  the  distaff; 
the  ox  turning  its  head  to  be  patted  by  the  hand 
of  its  owner,  and  the  ass  trotting  off  at  feeding-time 
to  its  master's  crib.  The  prophet  looks  with  a 
specially  observant  and  sympathetic  eye  on  the  toils 
of  men — the  woodman  thinning  the  trees  of  the  for- 
est ;  the  carpenter,  with  saw  and  axe,  turning  to  his 
own  uses  the  sycamore  and  the  cedar;  the  builder 
among  his  bricks  and  stones  ;  and  the  farmer,  on  the 
exposed  height  of  the  threshing-floor,  winnowing 
his  corn  with  the  shovel  and  the  fan.  As  is  usual  in 
t!ie  Bible,  the  shepherd    is  portrayed   with   special 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.   103 

honour,  whether  he  calls  out  his  neighbours  to 
frighten  away  the  lion  from  his  flock  or  is  seen 
gathering  the  lambs  in  his  arms  and  carrying  them 
in  his  bosom.  But  most  of  all  does  the  poet-proph- 
et love  to  linger  in  the  vineyard,  marking  accurately 
all  the  operations  of  the  vine-dresser  and  all  the 
stages  of  the  growth  of  the  vines.  We  see  the 
tearing  up  of  the  hillside  with  the  mattock,  the 
accumulation  of  soil,  the  gathering  out  of  the  stones, 
the  construction  of  the  winepress  and  the  watch- 
tower.  Then  we  see  the  roots  planted  and  growing 
from  stage  to  stage — from  that  "  afore  the  harvest, 
when  the  bud  is  perfect  and  the  sour  grape  is  ripen- 
ing in  the  flower,"  to  that  when  the  vineyard  is 
ringing  with  the  songs  of  the  vintage  and  the 
gleaners  are  picking  the  last  relics  from  the  outer- 
most branches. 

At  whatever  period  these  pictures  of  nature 
were  laid  up  in  the  memory  of  Isaiah,  they  came 
back  to  him  when  he  was  engaged  in  the  work  of 
a  prophet,  and  supplied  the  imagery  by  means  of 
which  the  Divine  truths  which  he  heralded  were 
made  impressive  and  attractive  to  his  countrymen 
and  acceptable  to  all  subsequent  generations  ;  for 
men  are  so  made  that  they  are  never  so  won  by 
the  truth  as  when  they  see  it  reflected  in  a  physical 
imaee. 


104  THE    PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

These  two  sides  of  the  prophet's  activity  nearly 
correspond  to  what  we  should  call  Thought  and 
Expression.  Or,  to  put  it  still  more  broadly,  the 
preacher  must  be  a  man  who  both  has  something  to 
say  and  knows  how  to  say  it.  On  these  two  appar- 
ently simple  qualifications  hang  all  the  science  and 
art  of  our  vocation. 

In  reality  they  are  not  simple.  To  have  the  right 
thing  to  say  is  a  great  commandment,  and  to  know 
the  right  way  to  say  it  is,  though  second  to  it, 
hardly  inferior.  But  the  problem  of  the  ministry  is 
to' have  both  in  perfect  equipoise — to  utter  a  word 
which  is  at  the  same  time  both  a  message  from  God 
and  a  message  to  men. 

It  would  be  possible  to  be  so  taken  possession  of 
by  the  message  from  God  as  to  lose  self-control  and 
even  reason  itself.  In  Scripture  we  meet  with  mani- 
festations of  prophecy  which  are  akin  to  madness. 
Just  as  the  wind,  catching  the  sail,  would,  if  the 
ropes  were  not  adjusted  to  relieve  the  strain,  over- 
turn the  boat,  so  the  Wind  of  God  might  sweep  the 
mind  off  its  balance,  the  human  personality  being 
overborne  by  the  inrushing  inspiration.  Thus 
religion  may  make  a  man  a  fanatic,  who  has  no  con- 
trol over  his  own  spirit,  and  no  wisdom  to  choose  the 
times  at  which  to  speak  or  the  terms  in  which  to 
address  his   fellow-men.     On   the  other   hand,  the 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.  ]05 

opposite  excess  is  still  more  easy.  So  much  stress 
maybe  laid  on  the  form  of  words,  and  so  much  mas- 
tery obtained  of  the  art  of  winning  attention,  that 
the  necessity  of  having  a  Divine  message  to  deliver 
or  of  depending  on  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God  is 
forgotten.  The  windy  master  of  words,  whose  own 
spirit  is  not  subdued  either  by  the  impression  of 
great  thoughts  or  the  sense  of  a  great  responsibility, 
but  who  can  draw  the  eyes  of  men  on  his  own  per- 
formances and  earn  the  incense  of  applause,  has 
always  been  too  familiar  a  figure  in  religion.  It  is 
to  a  man  like  Isaiah  we  must  look  for  the  absolute 
balance  of  both  sides.  There  you  have  the  blowing 
in  all  its  degrees  of  the  Wind  of  God,  from  the 
gentlest  whisper  to  the  force  of  the  tempest,  but,  at 
the  same  time,  the  most  perfect  self-control  and  the 
adaptation  of  the  word  to  the  tastes  and  necessities 
of  those  to  whom  it  was  delivered. 

There  is  a  name  sometimes  applied  by  the  proph- 
ets to  themselves  which  admirably  expresses  the 
combination  and  balance  of  these  two  aspects  of 
their  activity.  They  call  themselves  Interpreters. 
The  process  of  interpretation  is  a  most  interesting 
one,  when  it  is  well  done.  I  have  heard  a  speaker 
address  with  the  greatest  fervour  a  multitude  who 
did  not  understand  a  word  he  was  saying;  but,  as 
fast   as    the    sentences    fell    from    his    lips,  another 


106  THE   PREACHER    AND   HIS  MODELS. 

speaker  by  his  side  caught  them  up  and,  in  tones 
as  fervid  and  with  gestures  as  dramatic  as  his  own, 
rendered  them  to  the  hearers  in  their  own  tongue 
with  such  effect  that  the  performance  made  all  the 
impression  of  an  original  speech.  An  interpreter 
is  one  who  receives  a  message  for  people  in  a  lan- 
guage which  they  do  not  understand  and  delivers  it 
to  them  in  their  own  tongue.  Jehovah  was  inces- 
santly speaking  to  His  people  in  the  vicissitudes  of 
their  history,  but  they  did  not  apprehend  His  mean- 
hig.  The  prophet,  however,  understood  ;  he  took 
the  Divine  message  into  his  own  soul,  and  then  he 
went  and  communicated  it  to  the  people  in  terms 
with  which  they  were  familiar.  An  interpreter  re- 
quires to  know  at  least  two  languages — that  in  which 
the  message  comes  and  that  in  which  it  has  to  be 
delivered.  If  he  knows  either  imperfectly,  his  in- 
terpretation will  be  proportionately  imperfect.  No 
interpreter  of  God,  perhaps,  knows  both  languages 
equally  well.  Some  know  the  Divine  language  im- 
perfectly, while  they  know  thoroughly  the  language 
of  men.  What  they  say  is  interesting,  fresh  and 
human  ;  but  there  is  not  much  of  a  Divine  message 
in  it.  Others  have  got  far  into  the  secret  of  God 
and  know  the  Divine  language  well ;  but  they  are 
not  sufficiently  masters  of  the  language  of  men. 
These  are  saintly  men  and  command  reverence  by 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.  107 

their  character,  but  what  they  say  does  not  find  its 
way  to  men's  business  and  bosoms. 

I  have  seen  the  same  truth  put  in  another  way. 
Tholuck,  one  of  the  most  gifted  of  modern  preach- 
ers, has  made  the  remark  that  a  sermon  ought  to 
have  heaven  for  its  father  and  the  earth  for  its 
mother.  Why,  he  asks,  do  one  half  of  our  sermons 
miss  the  mark?  It  is  because,  while  they  treat  of 
the  circumstances  and  relationships  of  life  in  an 
interesting  way,  they  do  so  only  in  the  light  which 
springs  from  below,  not  in  that  which  streams  from 
above  ;  they  have  the  earth  for  their  mother,  but 
not  heaven  for  their  father.  And  why  do  the  other 
half  of  our  sermons  fail  to  touch  the  heart  ?  It  is 
because,  while  they  display  the  heavenly  things 
shining  at  a  distance,  they  do  not  bring  them  down 
to  the  homes  and  workshops,  the  highways  and  by- 
ways of  ordinary  life  ;  they  have  heaven  for  their 
father,  but  not  the  earth  for  their  mother.* 

Indeed,  gentlemen,  the  definition  of  the  preacher 
as  a  Man  of  the  Word  covers  a  very  large  area  of  our 

*  The  same  idea  lias   long  been  helpful   to  me  in  a  third  form — in  the 
following  lines  of  Platen — 

"  Was  stets  und  aller  Orten 

Sich  ewig  jung  erweist 
1st,  in  gebundenen  Worten 

Ein  ungebundener  Geist." 


108  THE    PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

duty,  and  an  analysis  of  its  contents  will  furnish  a 
kind  of  natural  history  of  that  which  is  the  most 
important  part  of  a  minister's  work  from  week  to 
week. 

I.  To  be  a  Man  of  the  Word  is  to  be  a  master  of 
the  Divine  Word.  In  the  pulpit  not  only  must  a 
man  have  something  to  say,  but  it  must  be  a  message 
from  God.  Where  is  this  to  be  found  ?  We  do  not 
now  require  to  seek  it,  as  the  prophets  had  to  do,  in 
the  empty  void.  Their  work  was  not  in  vain.  They 
were  working  for  their  own  times,  but  they  were  also 
working  for  all  time.  The  prophets  and  apostles  put 
into  a  permanent  form  the  principles  on  which  the 
world  is  governed,  and  gave  classical  expression  to 
the  most  important  truths  which  man  requires  to 
know  for  salvation  and  for  the  conduct  of  his  life. 
Thus  they  are  still  serving  us,  and  we  can  begin 
where  they  left  off.  He  who  receives  the  message 
of  God  now  finds  it  in  the  Word  of  God. 

Hence  one  of  the  primary  qualifications  of  the 
ministry  is  an  intimate  familiarity  with  the  Scriptures. 
To  this  end  a  large  proportion  of  the  study  required 
of  you  at  college  is  directed  ;  and  the  subsequent 
habits  of  ministerial  life  have  to  be  formed  with  the 
same  object  in  view\  A  large  portion  of  our  work 
is  the  searching  of  the  Scriptures,  and  a  preacher  of 
the  highest  order  will  always  be  a  man  mighty  in  the 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OP  THE  WORD.  100 

Scriptures.  We  chance  at  present  to  be  living  at  a 
time  when  the  questions  about  the  Bible  are  the 
most  numerous  and  the'  most  difficult  in  theology, 
and  many  accepted  opinions  are  cast  into  solution. 
I  dare  say  it  is  the  experience  of  most  students  of 
divinity  that  they  are  more  perplexed  about  inspira- 
tion and  related  questions  than  about  any  other  sub- 
jects. On  the  other  hand,  the  attention  directed  to 
the  Bible  was  never  so  great  as  it  is  at  present ;  and 
the  methods  of  studying  it  are  daily  improving. 
And,  in  spite  of  all  the  difficulties,  it  is  questionable 
if  there  ever  was  in  the  Church  an  intenser  convic- 
tion that  the  voice  of  God  is  heard  in  His  Word. 
The  experience  of  the  ministry  deepens  this  convic- 
tion every  year.  If  I  may  give  utterance  to  my  own 
experience,  I  have  never  come  to  the  end  of  a  close 
study  of  a  book  of  Scripture  in  the  congregation 
without  having  both  a  fresh  respect  for  its  literary 
character  and. a  profounder  impression  of  its  Divine 
wisdom.  The  more  the  Bible  is  searched,  the  more 
will  it  be  loved  ;  and  the  stronger  will  the  conviction 
grow  that  its  deep  truths  are  the  Divine  answers  to 
the  deep  wants  of  human  nature; 

Yet  to  deliver  the  message  of  God  is  not  merely 
to  read  what  prophets  and  apostles  penned  and  to 
repeat  it  by  rote.  The  man  who  is  to  be  God's  mes- 
senger must  himself  draw  near  to  God  and  abide  in 


110  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

His  secret,  as  they  did.  The  word  must  detach  itself 
from  the  book  and  become  a  Hving  element  of  expe- 
rience before  it  can  profit  even  the  reader  himself; 
and  much  more  is  this  the  case,  of  course,  before  it 
can  profit  others. ''•  It  is  the  truth  which  has  become 
a  personal  conviction,  and  is  burning  in  a  man's  heart 
so  that  he  cannot  be  silent,  which  is  his  message. 
The  number  of  such  truths  which  a  man  has  appro- 
priated from  the  Bible  and  verified  in  his  own  expe- 
rience is  the  measure  of  his  power.f  There  is  all 
the  difference  in  the  world  between  the  man  who 
thus  speaks  what  he  knows  from  an  inner  impulse 
and  the  man  whose  sermon  is  simply  a  literary  ex- 
ercise on  a  Scripture  theme,  and  who  speaks  only 
because  Sunday  has  come  round  and  the  bell  rung 
and  he  must  do  his  duty. 

The  selection  of  the  theme  for  preaching  is  to  be 


*  "  Into  Ezekiel's  hand  there  was  put  a  roll  written  within  and  without 
with  lamentation  and  mourning;  and  woe,  an  objective  revelation  which  he 
himself  had  not  written  ;  but,  before  he  could  deliver  it  to  others,  he  had 
to  eat  it  :  all  that  was  written  on  it  had  to  become  a  part  of  himself,  had 
to  be  taken  into  his  inmost  experience  and  be  digested  by  him,  and  be- 
come his  own  very  life's  blood." — Marcus  Dods,  D.D. 

+  This  is  what  our  Lord  chiefly  meant  by  a  teacher's  "treasure" — 
"  Every  scribe  which  is  instructed  unto  the  kingdom  of  God  bringeth  forth 
out  of  his  treasure  things  new  and  old."  How  much  the  treasures  of 
different  preachers  differ  in  magnitude  !  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the 
Saviour  calls  the  preichers  of  the  New  Testament  "scribes."  In  spite 
of  the  evil  associations  of  the  name  He  retained  it.  because  it  emphasizes 
the  fact  that  the  Christian  preacher  is  to  be  a  student  and  an  expounder 
of  Scripture. 


THE  PREACHER  ASA  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.   \\\ 

determined  chiefly  by  the  power  of  the  Word  to  lay 
hold  of  the  conviction  of  the  preacher.  Or,  if  the 
subject  is  prescribed,  as  when  one  is  lecturing  through 
a  book  of  the  Bible,  the  points  to  be  treated  are  to  be 
determined  in  this  way.  Sometimes,  as  a  preacher 
reads  the  Word,  a  text  will  leap  from  the  page,  so 
to  speak,  and,  fastening  on  the  mind,  insist  on  being 
preached  upon.  A  sermon  on  such  a  text  is  nearly 
always  successful ;  and  a  wise  man  will,  therefore, 
take  care  to  garner  such  texts  when  they  occur  to 
him.  He  will  underline  them  in  his  Bible,  or,  better 
still,  enter  them  in  a  note-book  kept  for  the  purpose, 
adding  a  few  words  perhaps  to  indicate  the  first  lines 
of  thought  which  have  occurred  to  him.  These  notes 
may  be  multiplied  from  time  to  time  ;  and,  when  the 
minister  turns  to  a  page  which  has  been  thus  filled, 
he  will  often  find  his  sermon  nearly  made  to  his  hand.* 
Dr.  Wendell  Holmes  tells  of  Emerson  that  he  kept 
such  a  note-book  for  subjects  on  which  he  might 
lecture,  and  for  suggestions  of  lines  of  thought  which 
he  might  follow  out.  He  called  it  his  Savings  Bank, 
because,  though  the  payments  into  it  were  minute, 
they  gradually  swelled  to  riches  ;  and  passages  which 
his  hearers  and  readers  supposed  to  be  outbursts  of 


*  Some  preachers  keep  an  interleaved  Bible,  in  which  references  to  pas- 
sages in  their  reading  are  entered  opposite  the  texts  which  they  illustrate 
— an  excellent  device. 


112  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

sudden  literary  creation  were  really  the  results  of 
slow  accumulation.  If  this  was  necessary  for  even  a 
genius  like  Emerson  it  will  be  far  more  necessary 
for  the  c.rdinary  man.  The  gold  of  thought  has 
generally  to  be  collected  as  gold  dust. 
-^X  2.  But  this  already  brings  me  to  the  second  stage 
of  this  natural  history,  which  is,  that  the  preacher 
must  be  a  master  of  Human  Words.  The  message 
from  God  which  we  carry  is  to  become  a  message 
to  men,  and  therefore  we  must  know  how  to  intro- 
duce it  successfully  to  their  notice.  Strong  as  our 
own  conviction  may  be,  yet  it  may  be  crude  and 
formless;  and,  before  it  can  become  the  conviction 
of  others,  it  must  take  a  shape  which  will  arouse 
their  attention.  It  may  belong  to  a  region  of 
thought  with  which  they  are  unfamiliar,  and  it  has 
to  be  brought  near,  until  it  enters  the  circle  of  their 
own  ideas. 

This  is  the  problem  of  the  composition  of  the 
sermon,  whether  this  means  the  writing  of  it  out  or 
the  arrangement  of  the  materials  in  the  memory  in 
preparation  for  delivery.  And  many  rules  might  be 
given  to  help  at  this  point. 

One  often  recommended  is  to  keep  the  audience 
in  view  to  which  the  composition  is  to  be  addressed. 
If  by  this  is  meant  that  the  writer,  as  he  sits  at  his 
desk,  should  try  to  conjure  up  in  his  imagination  the 


THE  PREACHER  .IS  A  MA.V  OF  THE  WORD.    113 

benches  of  the  church  and  their  occupants,  I  do  not 
know  whether  it  is  a  practicable  rule  or  not.  But 
if  it  means  that  the  preacher,  as  he  composes  his 
sermon,  should  keep  in  view  the  circumstances  of 
his  hearers — their  stage  of  culture,  the  subjects  in 
which  they  are  interested,  the  Scriptural  attain- 
ments which  they  have  already  made,  and  the  like — 
it  is  one  of  the  prime  secrets  of  the  preacher's  art, 
and  I  will  return  to  speak  of  it  more  fully  in  a  sub- 
sequent lecture.  I  once  heard  Mr.  Spurgeon  preach 
a  characteristic  sermon  on  an  unusual  text.  It  was 
on  these  words  in  Hosea:  "I  was  unto  them  as 
they  that  take  off  the  yoke  on  their  jaws,  and  I  laid 
meat  unto  them."  To  illustrate  the  first  clause  he 
drew  a  graphic  picture  of  a  London  carter  in  Corn- 
hill  loosening  the  harness,  when  his  horse  had  sur- 
mounted the  incline,  taking  the  bit  out  of  its  mouth, 
and  fastening  on  the  corn-bag;  and  he  applied  the 
second  clause  with  humorous  wisdom  to  the  be- 
haviour of  preachers.  As  the  carter  in  the  stable 
"  lays  "  the  hay  to  his  horse,  so  the  preacher  has  to 
"  lay  "  the  food  to  the  congregation.  The  carter 
must  not  put  the  food  too  high,  where  the  horse 
cannot  reach  up  to  it,  nor  too  low,  where  it  cannot 
get  down  to  it,  but  just  where  it  can  seize  and  de- 
vour it  with  comfort.  So  the  preacher  must  neither 
pitch  his  message  too  high,  where  it  will  be  above 


114  THE   PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

the  comprehension  of  the  congregation,  nor  too 
low,  where  it  will  not  command  their  respect,  but 
just  where  they  can  reach  it  easily  and  comfortably. 
This  quaint  illustration  has  often  recurred  to  me  in 
the  study,  and  made  me  anxiously  consider  whether 
I  was  putting  the  truth  in  such  a  way  that  the  con- 
gregation could  grasp  it. 

Many  rules  have  been  proposed  for  winning  the 
attention  of  the  congregation.  Some  have  laid 
stress  on  commencing  the  sermon  with  something 
striking.  Mr.  Moody,  the  evangelist,  whose  opinion 
on  such  a  subject  ought  to  be  valuable,  recommends 
the  preacher  to  crowd  in  his  best  things  at  the  be- 
ginning, when  the  attention  is  still  fresh.  Others 
have  favoured  the  opposite  procedure.  During  the 
first  half  of  the  discourse  nearly  every  audience  will 
give  the  speaker  a  chance.  At  this  point,  there- 
fore, the  heavier  and  drier  things  which  need  to  be 
said  ought  to  occur.  But  about  the  middle  of  the 
discourse  the  attention  begins  to  waver.  Here, 
therefore,  the  more  picturesque  and  interesting 
things  should  begin  to  come  ;  and  the  very  best 
should  be  reserved  for  the  close,  so  that  the  im- 
pression may  be  strongest  at  the  last.*     St.  Augus- 


*  "  The  strongest  part  of  all  great  sermons  is  the  close.  More  depends 
on  the  last  two  minutes  than  on  the  first  ten." — From  a  choice  little  tract 
on  Preaching,  by  "  Prediger." 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.  115 

tine  says  that  a  discourse  should  instruct,  delight 
and  convince  ;*  and  perhaps  these  three  impres- 
sions should,  upon  the  whole,  follow  this  order. 
The  more  instructive  elements — the  facts  and  ex- 
planations— should  come  first,  appealing  to  the  in- 
tellect ;  then  should  follow  the  illustrative  and  pa- 
thetic elements,  which  touch  the  feelings;  and  then, 
at  the  close,  should  come  those  moving  and  over- 
awing considerations  which  stir  the  conscience  and 
determine  the  will.  Thus  the  impression  would 
grow  from  the  commencement  to  the  close. f 

To  obtain  command  of  language  it  is  good  to 
hear  the  best  speakers  and  to  read  the  best  books. 
It   has  been   my    fortune  to   be  acquainted  with   a 

*  He  is  quoting  Cicero.  Dixit  ergo  quidam  eloquens,  et  varum 
dixit,  ita  dicere  debere  eloquentem,  ut  doceat,  ut  delectet,  ut  flectat. 
Deinde  addidit  :  Docere  necessitatis  est,  delectare  suavitatis,  flectere  vic- 
torias. .  .  .  Opoilet  igitur  eloquentem  ecclesiasticum,  quando  suadet  ali- 
quid  quod  agendum  est,  non  solum  docere  ut  instruat,  et  delectare  ut 
teneat,  verum  etiani  flectere  ut  vincat. — De  Doctrt'na  C/iristtana,  IV.  13. 
+  An  esteemed  friend,  the  Rev.  John  McMillan  of  Ullapool,  some  years 
ago  repeated  to  m-^  the  following  rhyme  on  the  method  of  construe' ing  a 
sermon,  and,  although  I  have  never  succeeded  in  coming  up  to  its  stand- 
ard, yet  it  has  often  floated  before  me  with  advantage  in  the  hours  of 
c  mposition — 

"  Begin  low  ; 

Proceed  slow  ; 

Rise  higher  ; 

Take  fire  ; 

When  most  impressed- 

Be  self-possessed ; 

To  spirit  wed  form  ; 

Sit  down  in  a  storm." 


116  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

good  many  celebrated  preachers ;  and  I  have  ob- 
served that,  almost  without  exception,  they  have 
had  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  whole  range 
of  the  higher  English  literature.  To  have  the  music 
of  Shakespeare  or  Milton  echoing  in  your  memory, 
or  to  have  lingering  in  your  ear  the  cadence  and 
sweep  of  the  sentences  of  Thackeray  and  De  Quin- 
cey,  will  almost  unawares  give  you  a  good  style. "'^ 
In  reading  over  an  old  sermon  of  my  own,  I  can 
almost  tell  whether  or  not,  in  the  week  of  its  com- 
position, I  was  reading  good  literature.  In  the 
former  case  the  language  is  apt  to  be  full  and  har- 
monious, and  sprinkled  over  with  gay  flowers  of 
maxim  and  illustration,  whereas  in  the  latter  the 
style  of  the  performance  is  apt  to  be  bald  and  jerky.f 
Let  me  mention  one  more  rule  for  the  compo- 
sition of  the  sermon  which  appears  to  me  to  be  the 
most  important  of  all.  It  is,  to  take  time.  Begin 
in  time  and  get  done  in  time — this,  I  often  say  to 
myself,  is  the  whole  duty  of  a  minister.     The  reason 


*  It  will  be  remembered  that  John  Bright  used  regularly,  during  the 
session  of  Parliament,  to  read  aloud  from  one  of  the  poets  the  last  thing 
at  night. 

+  Tholuck  gives  another  weighty  reason  why  ministers  should  know  the 
best  literature  :  In  einer  Zeit  wo  Shakespeare  eine  stiiikere  Autoritiit  fiir 
Viele  ist  als  Paulus,  und  em  Distichon  Goethes  eine  kriiftigere  Belegstelle 
als  der  ganze  R6mer-und  Galaterbrief,  darf  der  Geistliche,  welcher  auf 
seine  Gemeinde  wiirken  will,  mit  ihren  Gewtihrsmrmnern  nicht  unbekannt 
seyn.  Wenn  irgendwo,  so  gilt  auch  hier  des  Apostels  Wort  :  Alles  ist 
Euer. 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.    117 

why  so  many  of  our  sermons  are  crude  in  thought, 
unbalanced  in  the  arrangement  of  the  materials, 
destitute  of  literary  beauty,  and  unimpressive  in 
delivery,  is  because  they  are  begun  too  late  and 
written  too  hurriedly.  The  process  of  thinking  es- 
pecially should  be  prolonged  ;  it  is  not  so  impor- 
tant that  the  process  of  writing  should  be  slow.  It 
is  when  the  subject  has  been  long  tossed  about  in 
thought  that  the  mind  begins  to  glow  about  it ;  the 
subject  itself  gets  hot  and  begins  to  melt  and  flash, 
until  at  last  it  can  be  poured  forth  in  a  facile  but 
glowing  stream.  Style  is  not  something  added  to 
the  thought  from  the  outside.  It  is  simply  the 
beauty  of  the  truth  itself,  when  you  have  gone  deep 
enough  to  find  it;  and  the  worst  condemnation  of 
a  careless  and  unattractive  style  is  that  it  does  the 
truth  injustice. 

3.  The  preacher  ought  to  be  master  of  the  Oral 
Word.  There  is  a  stage  which  the  truth  has  to  pass 
through  after  it  has  been  prepared  in  the  study  for 
the  consumption  of  the  hearers.  This  is  the  oral 
delivery ;  and  it  is  a  part  of  the  natural  history  of 
the  sermon  which  must  not  be  overlooked.  A  ser- 
mon may  be  well  composed  in  the  study  and  yet 
be  a  failure  in  the  pulpit.  Indeed,  this  is  one  of 
the  most  critical  stages  of  the  entire  process.  There 
are  few  things   more  disappointing   than   to  have 


118  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

received  a  message  to  deliver  and  spent  a  laborious 
and  happy  week  in  composition,  and  yet  on  Sunday, 
as  you  descend  the  pulpit  stair,  to  know  that  you 
have  missed  the  mark.  This,  however,  is  far  from 
an  infrequent  occurrence.  The  same  sermon  may 
even  be  a  success  on  one  occasion,  and  on  another 
a  partial  or  a  total  failure. 

Wherein  a  good  delivery  consists  it  is  difficult  to 
say.  It  is  the  rekindling  of  the  fire  of  composition 
in  the  presence  of  the  congregation  ;  it  is  the  power 
of  thinking  out  the  subject  again  on  your  feet. 
This  must  not  be  a  mere  repetition  of  a  byegone 
process,  but  a  new  and  original  action  of  the  mind 
on  the  spot.  Tholuck,  to  whom  I  have  already 
alluded  in  this  lecture,  says  that  a  sermon  needs  to 
be  born  twice:  it  must  be  born  once  in  the  study  in 
the  process  of  composition,  and  it  must  be  born 
again  in  the  pulpit  in  the  process  of  delivery. 
Many  a  sermon  is  a  genuine  birth  of  the  mind  in 
the  study  which  in  the  pulpit  is  stillborn.* 

*  "  Aber  nicht  bloss  die  Erzeugung  der  Predigt  geschehe  im  heiligen 
Geist,  sondern  audi  ihr  Vortrag.  Es  liisst  sich  nicht  aussprechen, 
welch'  ein  Unterschied  zwischen  der  Wiirkung  einer  Predigt,  welche 
bloss  aus  der  Erinnerung  von  der  Kanzel  herabgesprochen  wird — wie 
trefflich  sie  auch  ijbrigens  seyn  mag — und  welche  dort  zum  zweilenmal 
geboren  wird  in  lebendigem  Glauben.  .  .  .  Die  Predigt  muss  eine  That 
des  Predigers  auf  seinem  Stutlirzinimer,  sie  muss  aberniais  eine  That 
seyn  auf  der  Kaiizel  ;  er  muss,  wenn  er  herunter  kommt,  Mutterfreuden 
fiihlen,  Freuden  der  Mutter,  die  unter  Gottes  Segen  ein  Kind  geboien 
hat." 


THE  PREACHER  ASA  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.   119 

Some  preachers  have  an  extraordinary  facility  of 
putting  themselves  at  once,  and  every  time,  en  rap- 
port with  the  audience,  so  that  there  is  from  first  to 
last,  whilst  they  speak,  a  commerce  between  the 
mind  in  the  pulpit  and  the  minds  in  the  pews.  To 
others  this  is  the  most  difficult  part  of  preaching. 
The  difficulty  is  to  get  down  amongst  the  people 
and  to  be  actually  dealing  with  them.  Many  a 
preacher  has  a  thought,  and  is  putting  it  into  good 
enough  words,  but  somehow  the  people  are  not 
listening,  and  they  cannot  listen. 

If  the  Senate  of  this  University  were  ever  to  try 
the  experiment  of  asking  a  layman  to  deliver  this 
course  of  Lectures  on  Preaching,  I  am  certain  he 
would  lay  more  stress  on  this  than  we  do,  and  put 
a  clear  and  effective — if  possible,  a  graceful  and 
eloquent — delivery  among  the  chief  desiderata  of  the 
pulpit.  I  do  not  know  how  it  may  be  among  you  ; 
but,  when  I  was  at  college,  we  used  rather  to  despise 
delivery.  We  were  so  confident  in  the  power  of 
ideas  that  we  thought  nothing  of  the  manner  of  set- 
ting them  forth.  Only  have  good  stuff,  we  thought, 
and  it  will  preach  itself.     We  like  to  repeat,  with 

Faust, 

"  True  sense  and  reason  reach  their  aim 

With  little  help  from  art  and  rule; 

Be  earnest  !  then  what  need  to  seek 

The  words  that  best  your  meaning  speak  ?" 


120  THE   PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

So  we  thought  ;  and  many  of  us  have  since  suffered 
for  it.  We  know  how  many  sermons  are  preached 
in  the  churches  of  the  country  every  Sunday ;  but 
does  anyone  know  how  many  are  hstened  to  ?  The 
newspapers  supply  us  now  and  then  with  statistics 
of  how  many  hearers  are  present  in  our  congrega- 
tions ;  but  who  will  tell  us  v/hat  proportion  of  these 
are  listeners?  If  we  knew  the  exact  percentage,  I 
suspect,  it  would  appal  us.  Yet  it  is  not  because 
there  is  not  good  matter  in  the  sermons,  but  be- 
cause it  is  not  properly  spoken.  In  the  manufact- 
ure of  steam-engines  the  problem  is,  I  believe,  to 
get  as  much  work  as  possible  out  of  the  coal  con- 
sumed. In  every  engine  which  has  ever  yet  been 
constructed  there  has  been  a  greater  or  less  w^aste 
of  heat,  which  is  dispersed  into  the  surrounding  air 
or  carried  away  by  the  adjacent  portions  of  the  ma- 
chinery, without  doing  work.  Engineering  skill 
has  been  gradually  reducing  the  amount  of  this 
waste  and  getting  a  larger  and  larger  proportion  of 
work  out  of  the  fuel ;  and  a  perfect  engine  would 
be  one  in  which  the  whole  of  the  coal  consumed 
had  its  full  equivalent  in  work  done.  One  of  our 
problems,  it  seems  to  me,  is  a  similar  one.  There 
is  an  enormous  disproportion  between  the  amount 
of  energy  expended  during  the  week  in  preparation 
and  the  amount  of  impression  made  on  the  hearers 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN  OF  THE  WORD.   121 

on  Sunday.  Ministers  do  not  get  enough  of  result 
in  the  attention,  satisfaction  and  delight  of  their 
hearers  for  the  work  they  do  ;  and  the  failure  is  in 
the  vehicle  of  communication  between  the  study 
and  the  congregation — that  is  to  say,  in  the  delivery 
of  the  sermon.  What  I  am  pleading  for  is,  that 
there  should  be  more  work  to  show  for  the  coal 
consumed.* 

*  Adolphe  Monod,  himself  a  distinguished  master  of  the  art  of  delivery, 
givfS  bome  good  hints  on  it  in  a  p  per  on  The  Eioqueuce  p/  the  Pulpit, 
translated  and  publis"ed  as  an  article  in  The  British  and  Foreign  Evan- 
gelical Review,  January,  iS8i  : — 

"In  general,  people  recite  too  quickly,  far  too  quickly.  When  a  man 
speaks,  the  thoughts  and  feelings  do  not  come  to  him  all  at  once  ;  they 
take  birth  little  by  little  in  his  mind.  It  is  necessary  that  this  1  tbour  and 
this  slowness  appear  in  the  reciting,  or  it  will  always  come  short  of 
nature.  Take  time  to  reflect,  to  feel,  and  to  allow  ideas  to  come,  and 
hurry  your  recitation  only  when  constrained  by  some  particular  consider- 
ation." .     .     . 

"  Talk  not  in  the  pulpit.  An  exaggerated  familiarity  would  be  a  mis- 
take nearly  as  great  as  declamation  :  it  happens  more  seldom  ;  it  is, 
nevertheless,  found  in  certain  preachers,  those  especially  who  have  not 
studied.  The  tone  of  good  conversation,  but  that  tone  heightened  and 
ennobled,  such  appears  to  me  the  ideal  of  pulpit  delivery."  .     .     . 

"In  order  to  rise  above  the  tone  of  conversation,  the  majority  of 
preachers  withdraw  too  far  from  it.  They  swell  their  delivery,  and  de- 
claim instead  of  speaking.  Now,  when  bombast  comes  in,  nature  goes 
out." 

In  regard  to  the  first  of  these  extracts  I  should  say  that  many  Scotch 
speakers  fail  through  lack  of  pace  in  the  delivery.  The  interest  is  lost  in 
the  pauses  between  the  sentences.  A  slow  delivery  is  only  effective  when 
a  thought  is  obviously  being  born,  for  which  the  audience  is  kept  intently 
waiting. 

But  the  most  remarkable  thing  in  the  article  is  the  following  quotation 
from  Talma,  the  actor  : — 

"We  were  rhetoricians  and  not  characters.  What  scores  of  academ- 
ical discourses  on  the  theatre,  how  few  simple  words  1     But  by  chance  I 


122  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

4.  Allow  me,  gentlemen,  in  closing  this  lecture,  to 
emphasize  another  sense  in  which  the  prophets  were 
men  of  the  Word,  and  in  which  they  are  worthy  of 
imitation.  They  were  masters  of  the  Written  Word. 
They  not  only  spoke  the  word  of  God,  but  wrote 
it  for  publication,  in  a  form  sometimes  more  diffuse 
and  sometimes  more  compressed  than  their  oral  ut- 
terances ;  and  by  this  means  they  not  only  extended 
their  influence  in  their  own  day,  but  have  enor- 
mously prolonged  it  since. 

It  is  surprising  how  few  of  those  who  have  spoken 

found  myself  one  evening  in  a  drawing-room  with  the  leaders  of  the  party 
of  the  Gironde.  Their  sombre  countenance,  their  anxious  look, 
attracted  my  attention.  There  were  there,  written  in  visible  letters, 
strong  and  powerful  interests.  They  were  men  of  too  much  heart  for 
those  interests  to  be  tarnished  by  selfishness ;  I  saw  in  them  the  manifest 
proof  of  the  danger  of  my  country.  All  come  to  enjoy  pleisure  ;  not  one 
thinking  of  it  !  They  began  to  discuss;  they  touched  on  the  most 
thrilling  questions  of  the  day.  It  was  grand  !  Methought  I  was  attend- 
ing one  of  the  secret  councils  of  the  Romans.  '  The  Romans  must  have 
spoken  like  these,'  said  I.  '  Let  the  country  be  called  France  or  Rome, 
it  makes  use  of  the  same  intonations,  speaks  the  same  language  :  there- 
fore, if  tliereis  no  declamation  here  before  me,  there  was  no  declamation 
down  there,  in  olden  times  ;  that  is  evident ! '  These  reflections  rendered 
me  more  attentive.  My  impressions,  though  produced  by  a  conversation 
thoroughly  free  from  bombast,  deepened.  '  An  apparent  calm  in  men 
agitated  stirs  the  soul,'  said  I  ;  'eloquence  may  then  have  strength,  with- 
out the  body  yielding  to  disordered  movements.'  I  even  perceived  that 
the  discourse,  when  delivered  without  efforts  or  cries,  renders  the  gesture 
more  powerful  and  gives  the  countenance  more  expression.  All  these 
deputies  assembled  before  me  by  chance  appear  to  me  much  more  elo- 
quent in  their  simplicity  than  at  the  tribune,  where,  being  in  spectacle, 
they  think  they  must  deliver  their  harangue  in  the  way  of  actors — and 
actors  as  we  were  then — that  is,  declaimers,  full  of  bombast.  From  that 
day  a  new  light  flashed  on  me  ;  I  foresaw  my  art  regenerated." 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A* MAN  OF  THE  WORD.   123 

the  word  of  God  have  cultivated  this  mode  of  deliver- 
ing it ;  and  it  is  perhaps  equally  astonishing  how  few 
of  those  who  have  cultivated  it  have  done  so  in  ear- 
nest. In  the  last  century,  promotion  in  the  Church 
of  England  was  won  by  literary  achievement ;  but 
the  would-be  bishop  did  not  generally  think  of  re- 
ligious literature  :  he  published  a  political  pamphlet 
or  edited  a  Greek  play.  Among  the  Scottish  Moder- 
ates there  was  a  keen  ambition  for  literary  distinction  ; 
but  it  was  the  more  prized  the  more  remote  the  fields 
in  which  it  was  won  lay  from  a  minister's  peculiar 
work.  This  led  the  Evangelicals  to  discountenance 
literary  productivity,  which  they  regarded  as  spring- 
ing from  unholy  motives  and  as  likely  to  distract  the 
mind  from  the  true  ends  of  the  ministry.  Rut  surely 
there  is  a  juster  point  of  view  than  either  the  Moder- 
ate or  the  Evangelical.  This  work  ought  to  be 
cultivated  with  precisely  the  same  aims  as  preaching 
and  with  the  same  earnestness.  When  a  man  is 
truly  called  to  it,  it  brings  a  vast  audience  within  his 
range,  and  there  may  rest  on  it  a  remarkable  bless- 
ing. Here  is  a  significant  extract  from  the  history 
of  British  Christianity :  Richard  Baxter  wrote  A 
Call  to  the  Unconverted,  and  Philip  Doddridge  was 
converted  by  reading  it ;  Philip  Doddridge  wrote 
The  Rise  and  Progress  of  Religion  in  the  Sonl,  and 
William  Wilberforce  was  converted  by  reading  it ; 


124  THE  PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

Wilberforce  wrote  the  Practical  Vteza,  and  Thomas 
Chalmers  was  converted  by  reading  it.  What  a  far- 
extending  influence  does  each  of  these  names  repre- 
sent !  The  writing  of  books  is  perhaps  the  Hkehest 
of  all  avenues  by  which  to  carry  religious  influence 
to  the  most  select  minds. 


LECTURE  V. 
THE  PREACHER  AS  A  FALSE  PROPHET 


LECTURE  V. 

THE  PREACHER  AS  A  FALSE  PROPHET. 

UPON  anyone  who  is  studying  the  physiognomy 
of  the  age  of  the  prophets  there  is  one  disa- 
greeable feature  which  obtrudes  itself  so  constantly 
that  even  in  the  briefest  sketch  it  is  impossible  to 
pass  it  by.  This  is  the  activity  of  the  false  proph- 
ets.* It  culminated  in  the  lifetime  of  Jeremiah, 
whose  whole  career  might  almost  be  described  as  a 
conflict  with  them.  Again  and  again  he  and  they 
came  to  open  war  ;  and  on  at  least  one  occasion 
the  whole  body  combined  to  take  away  his  life. 
Ezekiel  was  scarcely  less  afflicted  by  them.  They 
were  perhaps  not  so  prominent  an  element  in  the 
life  of  Isaiah,  but  he  also  refers  to  them  frequently; 
and,  indeed,  their  sinister  figures  haunt  the  pages 
of  all  the  prophets. 

*  As  ti. is  subject  is  somewhat  novel,  the  following:  eoUection  of  texts 
may  be  acceptable  ;  but  it  is  not  given  as  exhaustive : — 

Isa.  ii.  6;  xxviii.  7  ;  xxx.  10,  11  ;  xlvii.  13;  Ivi.  10-12. 

Jer.  ii.  8,  26;  iv,  9;  v.  31;  vi.  14;  xiv.  13-16;  xviii,  18;  xxiii.  9-40 
(locus  classicus)  ;  xxvi.  8  ;  xxvii.  9,  16;  xxviii.  xxix.  8. 

Ezek.  xii.  24  ;  xiii.  {locus  classicus)  ;  xiv.  9;  xx.  25  ;  xxi.  23  :  xxii.  25,  28. 

Micah  ii.  11 ;  iii.  5,  11. 

Zeph.  iii.  4. 

Zech.  X.  2 ;  xiii.  2-4. 


::-        r-'i'  .-~-?^-j i.'L=fr,\  .-'.vr  .-vi"  .Vl'-\- . , 

It  b  a  kind  of  humiliatioii  to  speak  of  th«n  at  all, 
and  I  -vro-uld  giadly  pass  th'^n  by  A  but  the  figure  o{ 
tl»e  true  prophet  will  rise  before  our  eyes  more 
deariy  by  the  contrast  of  the  false  l  and  it  is  per- 
lu^ks  a  duty  to  look  also  at  the  degradations  to 
wiiick  OttT  office  is  liable.  The  higher  the  honour 
attaching  to  the  ministerial  profession,  when  it  b 
wortiifljf  ffled,  die  dewier  is  the  ab«cse  of  which  it 
is  capahlf^  m  cooparisoa  with  other  caHings :  and 
ks  ianctkMts  aie  so  sacred  that  the  man  who  dis- 
ciaxges  tJiem  miESt  ekher  be  a  man  of  God  or  a 
Irepocrfte.  Yet  there  are  plenty  of  motives  of  an 
inlenor  kind  which  may  take  the  place  of  right 
■UDDESterial  aims.  Though  it  is  painful  to  speak  of 
sac^  tilings,  yet  here  again  the  method  which  we 
kave  adopted  in  these  lectures,  of  following  the 
gaadance  of  Scripture,  may  be  leading  us  better 
thaua  w«  coaid  have  chosen  ourselves ;  and  it  may 
be  whoteao— c  to  have  to  look  at  an  aspect  of  our 
sabfect  which  of  oar  own  accord  we  would  avoid. 

There  are  tvo  tiuags  in  Scr^ture  wiudi  I  have 
never  beeoi  able  to  thiak  of  withoot  stroag  move- 
ments of  fear  and  selfdistrust. 

One  (rf  them  is  th^at,  when  the  Son  ot  God  came 
to  this  earth.  He  was  persecuted  and  sJain  by  the 
reJigious  t-^a^^f^-     His  deadly  oppoQioats  were  the 


THE  PREACH EK  AS  A  FALSE  PMOFJIET.     \t9 

Scribes  and  Pharisees,  But  who  were  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees  ?  The  Scribes  occupied  almost  exactly 
the  position  in  the  community  which  is  held  among 
us  by  the  literaiy,  the  scholastic  and  the  clerical 
classes;  and  the  Pharisees  were  simply  what  we 
should  now  call  the  leading  religious  laymen.  Had 
they  been  adherents  of  a  false  religion,  there  would 
have  been  nothing  surprising  in  their  resist<mce  to 
the  final  revelation  of  the  true  God.  But  the  religion 
which  they  professed  was  the  true  religion;  the 
Scribes  were  the  expounders  of  the  Word  of  God, 
and  the  Pharisees  occupied  the  foremost  places  in 
the  house  of  God.  Yet,  when  the  Son  of  Jehovah, 
whose  name  they  were  called  by,  appeared  amongst 
them,  they  rejected  Him  and  t€»ok  away  His  life. 
Many  a  time,  as  I  have  followed  Jesus  step  by  step 
through  His  lifelong  conflict  with  their  illwill  and 
contradiction,  the  question  has  pressed  itself  pain- 
fully upon  my  mind :  If  He  were  to  come  to  the  earth 
now  and  intervene  in  our  aflairs,  how  would  the  re- 
l^ous  classes  receive  H  im  ?  and  cm  which  side  would 
I  be  myself?  If  to  any  this  question  nvay  seem 
fantastic,  let  them  change  it  into  this  other,  which 
cannot  appear  idle,  though  it  means  exactly  the 
same  thing :  What,  is  the  attitude  of  the  religioiiss 
dasses  to  the  manifestations  of  the  spirit  of  Jestts  in 
th^iff  t^  tf^pty7  Ain  they  welcome  them  and  back 


130  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

them  up  ?  or  have  the  new  ideas  and  movements  in 
which  Christ  is  marching  onward  to  the  conquest  of 
the  world  to  reckon  on  opposition,  even  from  those 
who  call  themselves  most  loudly  by  His  name? 

The  other  circumstance  which  has  often  affected 
my  mind  in  the  same  way  is  that  which  comes  before 
us  to-day-j-that  the  true  prophets  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament had  to  face  the  opposition,  not  of  heathens, 
and  not  of  the  openly  irreligious  among  their  own 
countrymen  only,  but  of  those  who  had  the  name  of 
God  in  their  mouths  and  were  publicly  recognised  as 
His  oracles. ~7  To  us  these  are  now  false  prophets, 
because  time  has  found  them  out  and  the  Word  of 
God  has  branded  them  Avith  the  title  they  deserve  ; 
but  in  their  own  day  they  were  regarded  as  true 
prophets ;  and  doubtless  many  of  them  never  dreamed 
that  they  were  not  entitled  to  the  name. 

They  must  have  been  a  numerous  and  powerful 
body.-  Jeremiah  mentions  them  again  and  again 
along  with  the  king,  the  princes  and  the  priests,  as 
if  they  formed  a  fourth  estate  in  the  realm ;  and 
Zephaniah  mentions  them  in  the  same  way  along 
with  the  princes,  the  judges  and  the  priests.  They 
evidently  formed  a  separate  and  conspicuous  class  in 
the  community.  They  cannot  have  been  equally  bad 
in  every  generation  ;  and  there  may  have  been  many 
degrees  of  deviation  among  them  from  the  character 


THE  PREACHER  ASA  FALSE  PROPHET.     l.U 

of  the  true  prophet ;  but  as  a  body  they  were  false,' 
and  the  true  servants  of  God  had  to  reckon  them 
among  the  anti-religious  forces  which  they  had  to 
overcome. 

This  is  an  appalling  fact — that  the  public  repre- 
sentatives of  religion  should  ever  have  been  the  worst 
enemies  of  religion  ;  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
even  in  Christendom,  and  that  not  once  or  twice,  the 
same  condition  of  things  has  existed. 

At  the  time  these  men  did  not  suppose  that  this 
was  the  position  they  held  ;  but  history  has  judged 
them.  It  is  not  easy  for  a  man  to  admit  the  thought 
into  his  own  mind  that  in  him  his  office  is  being 
dishonoured  and  its  aim  frustrated  ;  and  it  is  far 
more  difficult  to  do  so  if  he  has  the  support  of  the  pre- 
vailing sentiment  and  is  going  forward  triumphantly 
as  a  member  of  the  majority.  But  there  is  enough 
in  the  history  of  our  order  to  warn  us  to  watch  over' 
ourselves  with  a  jealous  mind,  lest  we  too,  while  clad 
in  the  garb  of  a  sacred  profession  and  in  the  author- 
ity of  an  ecclesiastical  position,  should  be  found 
fighting  against  God.  It  will  not  do  to  think  that, 
merely  because  we  sit  in  Moses'  seat  and  have  the 
Word  of  God  in  our  mouths,  therefore  we  must  be 
right.  Nor  must  we  be  too  confident  because  we 
are  in  the  majority.  If  we  have  faith  in  our  own 
views,  it  is  quite  right,  indeed,  that  we  should  try 


132  THE   PREACHER  AJVD   HIS  MODELS. 

to  make  them  prevail ;  and  there  is  a  legitimate  joy 
in  seeing  a  good  cause  carrying  with  it  the  sympa- 
thies and  suffrages  of  men.  But  we  are  all  too  easily 
persuaded  that  our  cause  is  good  simply  because  it 
can  win  votes.  In  ecclesiastical  affairs  there  is  often 
as  feverish  a  counting  of  heads  as  in  party  politics. 
The  majority  have  the  same  confidence  that  the  case 
is  finally  decided  in  their  favour ;  and  there  is  the 
same  exultation  over  the  defeated  party,  as  if  their 
being  in  the  minority  were  a  clear  proof  that  they 
were  also  in  the  wrong.  But  this  is  no  criterion, 
and  time  may  sternly  reverse  the  victory  of  the  mo- 
ment. Even  in  the  Church  the  side  of  the  false 
prophets  may  be  the  growing  and  the  winning  side, 
ywhile  Jeremiah  is  left  in  a  minority  of  one. 

The  false  prophets  were  strong,  not  only  in  their 
own  numbers,  but  in  their  popularity  with  the  peo- 
ple. This  told  heavily  against  the  true  prophets  ; 
for  the  people  could  not  believe  that  the  one  man, 
who  was  standing  alone,  was  right,  and  that  his  op- 
ponents, who  were  many,  were  wrong.  The  seats 
and  the  trappings  of  office  always  affect  the  mul- 
titude, who  are  slow  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  teachers  under  whom  they  find  themselves  in 
providence  can  be  misleading  them.  This  is,  to  a 
certain  extent,  an  honourable  sentiment  ;  but  it 
throws  upon  public  teachers  a  weighty  responsibility. 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A   FALSE  PROPHET.     133 

If  they  are  going  wrong,  they  will  generally  get  the 
majority  of  the  people  to  follow  them.  So  com- 
pletely may  this  be  the  case,  that  by  degrees  the 
popular  taste  is  vitiated  and  will  not  endure  any 
other  teaching  than  that  to  which  it  has  been  accus- 
tomed, though  it  be  false.  There  is  no  sadder 
verse  in  all  prophecy  than  the  complaint  of  Jere- 
miah, "  The  prophets  prophesy  falsely,  and  my  peo- 
ple love  to  have  it  so."  Like  prophet,  like  people  ; 
the  public  mind  may  be  so  habituated  to  what  is 
false,  and  satisfied  with  it,  that  it  has  no  taste  or 
even  tolerance  for  the  true.'^  Jeremiah  could  not 
gain  a  hearing  for  his  stern  and  weighty  message 
from  ears  accustomed  to  the  light  and  frivolous 
views  of  the  false  prophets ;  and  to  Baruch,  his 
young  coadjutor  and  amanuensis,  who  was  starting 
on  the  prophetic  career  with  the  high  hopes  of  youth, 
he  had  to  deliver  the  chilling  message,  "  Seekest 
thou  great  things  for  thyself?  seek  them  not."  The 
path  to  popularity  and  eminence  was  not  open  to 
anyone  who  did  not  speak  according  to  the  prevail- 
ing fashion. 

The  false  prophets  won  and  kept  their  popularity 
Iby  pandering  to  the  opinions  and  prejudices  of  the 

*  "  Sicut  autem  cuius  pulchrum  corpus  et  deformis  est  animus,  magis 
dolendus  est,  quam  si   deforme  haberet  et  corpus,  ita  qui  eloquenter  ea 
quae  falsa  sunt  dicunt,  magis  miserandi  sunt,  quam  si  talia  deformiter 
diceient." — St.  Augustine. 
10 


l;U    THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

people.  The  times  of  Jeremiah  were  big  with  com- 
ing calamities,  and  he  had  to  predict  that  these 
calamities  were  sure  to  come  ;  for  there  were  no  signs 
of  deep  or  genuine  repentance,  and,  indeed,  the  time 
for  repentance  was  past.  The  self-flattering,  ease- 
loving  people  hated  to  hear  these  disagreeable  facts. 
Their  frivolous  minds  were  engrossed  with  the  gossip 
and  excitement  of  the  passing  day,  and  it  was  too 
great  an  exertion  to  give  their  attention  to  the 
majestic  views  of  the  Divine  justice  and  the  far- 
reaching  sweep  of  the  Divine  providence  to  which 
Jeremiah  tried  to  direct  their  attention.  They  wished 
to  enjoy  the  present  and  to  believe  that  all  would 
come  right  somehow.  The  false  prophets  flattered 
these  wishes.  They  said  that  the  calamities  which 
Jeremiah  was  foretelling  would  not  come  to  pass,  or 
that  at  least  they  would  be  much  less  formidable  than 
he  represented.  They  were,  as  Jeremiah  says,  like  an 
unconscientious  physician,  who  is  afraid  to  probe  the 
wound  to  the  bottom,  though  the  life  of  the  patient 
.depends  on  it.  Ezekiel  accuses  them  of  making 
nightcaps  to  draw  over  the  eyes  and  ears  of  their 
countrymen,  lest  they  should  see  and  hear  the  truth, 
and  of  muffling  with  a  glove  the  naked  hand  of  God 
with  which  the  sins  of  the  people  should  have  been 
smitten.  The  constant  refrain  of  their  prophecies 
was,  "  Peace,  peace,"  though  the  storm-clouds  of  ret- 


f\ 


THE   PREACHER  AS  A  FALSE  PROPHET.      135 

ribution  were  ready  to  burst.  The  people  said  to 
them,  "Prophesy  to  us  smooth  things" ;  and  the 
false  prophets  provided  the  supply  according  to  the 

\demand. 

We  cannot  flatter  ourselves  that  this  is  a  danger 
which  belongs  entirely  to  the  past.  There  will  always 
be  a  demand  for  smooth  things,  and  an  appropriate 
reward  for  him  who  is  willing  to  supply  them  in  the 
ame  of  God.  Popularity  is  a  thing  which  will  al- 
ways be  coveted  ;  and  under  certain  conditions  it  is 
a  thing  to  be  thankful  for.  If  it  means  that  the  truth 
s  prevailing  and  that  men  are  yielding  their  minds  to 
:ts  sway,  it  is  a  precious  gift  of  heaven.     It  is  a  good 

filling  to  see  many  coming  out  to  hear  the  Word  of 

I  God,  and  to  both  preacher  and  hearers  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  exhilaration  and  inspiration  in  a  full  church. 
But  popularity  may  be  purchased  at  too  dear  a  rate. 
It  may  be  bought  by  the  suppression  of  the  truth 
and  the  letting  down  of  the  demands  of  Christianity. 
There  will  always  be  a  demand  for  a  religion  which 

I  does  not  agitate  the  mind  too  much  or  interfere  with 

Vthe  pursuits  of  a  worldly  life. 

I  have  seen  a  very  trenchant  article  from  an 
American  pen  on  the  power  of  the  moneyed  members 
of  a  church  to  dictate  the  tone  of  the  pulpit ;  and  it 
is  a  common  accusation  against  ministers,  that  they 
flatter  the  prevailing  classes  in  their  congregations. 


/ 


130  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

If  their  congregations  are  wealthy,  they  are  afraid,  it- 
is  said,  to  speak  up  for  the  poor,  even  when  justice  is 
calling  out  on  their  side  ;  and,  if  their  congregations 
are  poor,  they  take  the  side  of  the  working-man,  right 
or  wrong.  I  should  question  whether  temptations  so 
gross  as  these  are  much  felt.  Far  more  dangerous 
are  the  subtler  temptations — to  truckle  to  the  spirit 
of  the  age,  to  keep  at  all  hazards  on  the  side  of  the 
cultivated  and  clever,  and  to  shun  those  truths  the 
utterance  of  which  might  expose  the  teacher  to  the 
charge  of  being  antiquated  and  bigoted.  Let  a 
preacher  dwell  always  on  the  sunny  side  of  the  truth 
and  conceal  the  shadows,  let  him  enlarge  continually 
on  what  is  simple  and  human  in  Christianity  and  pass 
lightly  over  what  is  mysterious  and  Divine  :  let  him, 
for  example,  dwell  on  the  human  side  of  Christ  but 
say  nothing  of  His  deity,  let  him  enforce  Christ's 
example  but  say  nothing  of  His  atonement,  let  him 
extol  the  better  elements  of  human  nature  but  say 
nothing  of  its  depravity,  let  him  preach  frequently  on 
the  glories  of  the  next  world  but  never  mention  its 
terrors :  and  very  probably  he  may  be  popular  and  see 
his  Church  crowded  ;  but  he  will  be  a  false  prophet.* 

*  Even  popularity  honestly  won  may  be  a  great  snare.  Vanity,  it 
must  be  allowed,  is  prob  ibly  the  commonest  clerical  weakness  ;  and, 
when  it  is  yielded  to,  it  deforms  the  whole  character.  There  are  few 
things  more  touching  or  instructive  than  the  entries  in  Dr.  Chalmers' 
journal,  which  show  with  what   earnestness  he  was  praying  against  this, 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A  FALSE  PROPHET.     137 

-  Who  were  these  false  propets,  and  how  did  there 
come  to  be  such  numbers  of  them?  These  are 
questions  which  an  attentive  reader  of  the  Bible 
cannot  help  asking;  but  it  is  not  by  any  means  easy 
to  answer  them. 

The  prophets  whose  names  have  come  down  to  us 
are  not  by  any  means  numerous  ;  but,  besides  them, 
there  must  have  been  many  other  true  prophets. 
There  were  times  when  the  spirit  of  religion  was 
breathing  through  the  community,  and  then  men 
were  not  wanting  who  felt  called  to  be  its  organs. 
The  spirit  of  inspiration  might  fall  on  anyone  at  any 
time  ;  no  prescribed  training  was  necessary  to  make 

in  the  height  of  his  popularity,  as  a  besetting  sin.  If  this  were  common, 
there  would  not  be  the  slight  accent  of  contempt  attached  to  the  name 
of  the  popular  preacher  which  now  belongs  to  it  in  the  mouths  of  men. 
The  publicity  which  beats  on  the  pulpit  makes  veracity,  down  to  the 
bottom  of  the  soul,  more  necessary  in  the  clerical  than  in  any  other  call- 
ing. "  A  prime  virtue  in  the  pulpit  is  mental  integrity.  The  absence 
of  it  is  a  subtle  source  of  moral  impotence.  It  concerns  other  things 
than  the  blunt  antipodes  reprrsented  by  a  truth  and  a  lie.  Argument 
which  does  not  satisfy  a  preacher's  logical  instinct ;  illustration  which  does 
not  commend  itself  to  his  aesthetic  taste  ;  a  perspective  of  doctrine  which 
is  not  true  to  th;  eye  of  his  deepest  insight  ;  the  use  of  borrowed  mate- 
rials which  offend  his  sense  of  literary  equity  ;  an  emotive  intensity  which 
exaggerates  his  conscious  sensibility;  an  impetuosity  of  delivery  \Oiich 
overworks  his  thought ;  gestures  and  looks  put  on  for  scenic  effect  ;  an 
eccentric  elocution,  which  no  human  nature  ever  fashioned  ;  even  a 
shrug  of  the  shoulder,  thought  of  and  planned  for  beforehand — these  are 
causes  of  enervation  in  sermons  which  may  be  otherwise  well  framed  and 
sound  in  stock.  They  sap  a  preacher's  personality  and  neutrali-e  his 
magnetism.  They  are  not  true,  and  he  knows  it.  Hearers  may  know 
nothing  of  them  theoretically,  yet  may  feel  the  full  brunt  of  their  nega- 
tive force  practically." — AUSTIN  Phelps,  D.D.,  My  Note  Book. 


138  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

a  man  a  prophet.  It  might  come,  as  it  did  to  Amos, 
on  the  husbandman  in  his  fields  or  the  shepherd 
among  his  flock.  It  might  ahght  on  the  young  noble 
amidst  the  opening  pleasures  of  life,  as  it  did  on 
Isaiah  and  Zephaniah  ;  or  it  might  come,  as  it  did  on 
Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  on  the  young  priest  preparing 
for  his  sacred  functions. 

But  some  of  the  more  noted  prophets  endeavoured 
\|n  a  more  systematic  way  to  diffuse  the  spirit  which 
/rested  upon   themselves,  and  thus  to  multiply  the 
Inumber  of  the  prophets.     They  founded  schools  in 
'which  promising  young  men  were  gathered  and  plied 
I  with  the  means  of  education  available  in  that  age, 
I  cultivating  music,  reading  the  writings  of  the  older 
prophets,  and  coming  under  the  influence  of  the  holy 
man  who  was  at  their  head.    These  were  the  Schools 
of  the   Prophets,  and  their  students  were  the  Sons 
of  the   Prophets.     Samuel   seems  to  have  been  the 
first  founder  of  these  schools.     They  were  flourish- 
ing   in  the  times   of   Elijah    and    Elisha,  and    they 
probably  continued  to  exist  with  varying  fortunes  in 
subsequent  centuries.    Perhaps  all  who  went  through 
these  schools  claimed,  or  could  claim,  the  prophetic 
name.     Those  who  took  up  the  profession  wore  the 
hairy  mantle  and  leathern  girdle  made  familiar  to  us 
by  the  figure  of  John  the  Baptist ;  and  they  probably 
subsisted  on  the  gifts  of  those  who  benefited  from 


THE  PREACHER  ASA   FALSE  PROPHET.     139 

their  oracles.  Their  numbers  may  have  been  very 
large  ;  we  hear  of  hundreds  of  prophets  even  during 
an  idolatrous  reign,  when  they  were  exposed  to 
persecution. 

I  In  times  when  the  spirit  of  inspiration  was  abroad 
or  when  the  schools  enjoyed  the  presence  of  a  mas- 
ter spirit,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  valuable  such 
institutions  may  have  been,  and  how  they  may 
have  been  centres  from  which  religious  light  and 
warmth  were  diffused  through  the  whole  country. 
But  they  were  liable  to  deterioration.  If  the  gen- 
eral tone  of  religion  in  the  country  declined,  they 
partook  in  the  general  decay;  an  inspiring  leader 
might  be  taken  away  and  no  like-minded  successor 
arise  to  fill  his  place;  or  men  who  had  received  no 
real  call  beforehand  might  join  the  school  and  pass 
through  the  curriculum  without  receiving  it.  Only 
they  had  learned  the  trick  of  speech  and  got  by 
rote  the  language  of  religion.  They  had  no  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  God  or  message  obtained  di- 
rectly from  Him  ;  but  it  was  not  difficult  to  put  on 
the  prophet's  mantle  and  talk  in  the  traditional 
prophetic  tones.  The  fundamental  charge  against 
the  false  prophets  is  always  this :  "  I  have  not  sent 

I  these  prophets,  yet   they   ran  ;   I   have  not  spoken 

junto  them,  yet  they  prophesy." 

If  I  am  right  in  tracing  the  origin  of  false  proph- 


140  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

ecy  to  the  schools  of  the  prophets,  this  gives  a 
suggestive  hint  as  to  the  point  at  which  the  sanne 
danger  may  beset  ourselves.  It  is  obviously  the 
duty  of  the  authorities  of  the  Church  to  make  pro- 
vision for  the  training  of  those  who  are  to  be  the 
future  ministers  of  the  Gospel ;  and  it  is  natural  for 
those  who  have  the  honour  of  the  Church  at  heart 
to  covet  for  her  service  the  talents  of  the  gifted. 
Parents,  too,  will  often  be  found  cherishing  an  in- 
tense desire  that  the  choicest  of  their  sons  should 
become  ministers.  These  wishes  of  superiors  have 
a  legitimate  influence  in  determining  the  choice  of 
our  life-work.  The  wishes  and  prayers  of  pious 
parents  are  especially  entitled  to  have  very  great 
weight.  Yttjixuf^-is,  a  danger  of  an  outward  influ- 
ence of  this  kind  being  substituted  for  genuine  per- 
sonal experience  and  an  inward  call.  When,  a 
generation  ago,  in  the  rural  parts  of  England,  the 
church  in  many  a  parish  was  looked  upon  as  "  a 
living,"  to  be  allocated  to  a  junior  member  of  the 
family,  who  was  educated  for  the  position  as  a 
matter  of  course,  the  custom,  whatever  happy  re- 
sults it  might  produce  in  exceptional  cases,  was  not 
fitted  to  fill  the  pulpits  of  the  land  with  men  of 
prophetic  character.  The  pious  wishes  of  parents, 
however  beautiful  they  may  be,  require  to  be  made 
absolutely  conditional    on   a   vocation    of  a  higher 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A   FALSE  PROPHET.      141 

kind  ;  otherwise  we  get  a  manufactured  ministry, 
without  a  message,  in  place  of  men  in  whom  the 
spirit  of  inspiration  is  stirring  and  w^ho  speak  be- 
cause they  believe. 

^  Having  no  message  of  their  own,  what  were  the 
false  prophets  to  do  ?  The  best  they  could  do  was 
to  repeat  and  imitate  what  had  been  said  by  their 
predecessors.  It  is  with  this  Jeremiah  reproaches 
them  when  he  says,  "  Behold,  I  am  against  the 
prophets,  saith  the  Lord,  that  steal  My  words 
everyone  from  his  neighbour."  The  older  proph- 
ets used  to  begin  their  utterances  with  the  phrase, 
"  the  burden  of  the  Lord  ; "  and  Jeremiah  com- 
plains that  this  had  become  an  odious  cant  term  in 
the  mouths  of  his  contemporaries  ;  and  in  the  same 
way  Zechariah  complains  that  in  his  day  the  great 
word  "comfort,"  which  from  the  lips  of  Lsaiah  had 
descended  like  dew  from  heaven  on  the  parched 
\  hearts  of  the  people  of  God,  had  become  a  dry  and 
ackneyed  phrase  in  the  mouths  of  false  prophets. 
How  dangerous  this  habit  of  stealing  the  words  of 
others  might  become,  when  practical  issues  were 
involved,  may  be  illustrated  by  a  striking  example. 
The  inviolability  of  Jerusalem  had  been  a  principle 
of  the  older  prophets,  which  was  quite  true  for 
their  times ;  and    Isaiah   had   made    use   of   it    for 


^ 


142  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

rousing  his  fellow-citizens  from  despair,  when  the 
army  of  Sennacherib  stood  before  the  gates.  But 
in  Jeremiah's  time  the  change  of  circumstances  had 
made  it  to  be  no  longer  true ;  and  yet  the  false 
prophets  kept  on  repeating  it ;  and  no  doubt  they 
seemed  both  to  themselves  and  others  to  be  occu- 
pying a  strong  position  when,  in  opposing  him, 
they  could  allege  that  they  were  standing  on  the 
same  ground  as  Isaiah.  All  the  time,  however, 
they  were  betraying  those  who  listened  to  them. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  the  truth  of  God  is  un- 
changeable ;  it  is  like  Himself — the  same  yesterday 
and  to-day  and  forever.  But  there  is  another  sense 
in  which  it  is  continually  changing.  Like  the 
manna,  it  descends  fresh  every  morning,  and,  if  it 
is  kept  till  to-morrow,  it  breeds  loathsome  worms. 
Isaiah  describes  the  true  prophet  as  one  who  has 
the  tongue  of  the  learner — -not  of  the  learned,  as 
the  Authorised  Version  gives  it — and  whose  ear  is 
opened  every  morning  to  hear  the  message  of  the 
new  day.  What  was  truth  for  yesterday  may  be 
falsehood  for  to-day ;  and  only  he  is  a  trustworthy 
interpreter  of  God  who  is  sensitive  to  the  indica- 
tions of  present  providence. 

It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
the  only  form  which  false  prophecy  can  take  is  a 
dried-up  orthodoxy,  mumbling  over  the  shibboleths 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A   FALSE  PROPHET.      143 

of  yesterday.  If  he  who  stands  forward  as  a  speak- 
er for  God  is  out  of  touch  with  God  and  has  really 
no  Divine  message,  he  may  make  good  the  lack  of 
a  true  Divine  word  in  many  ways.  The  easiest 
way  is,  no  doubt,  to  fall  back  on  some  accepted 
word  of  yesterday  ;  but  he  may  also  strike  out  on 
the  path  of  originality,  announcing  a  gospel  for  to- 
morrow, constructed  by  his  own  fancy,  which  has 
no  Divine  sanction.  Neither  orthodoxy  nor  het- 
erodoxy is  a  guarantee  :  the  only  guarantee  is  a 
humble  mind  living  in  the  secret  of  the  Lord. 

I  have  mentioned  that  the  prophets  subsisted  on 
the  contributions  of  those  to  whom  their  oracies 
were  supposed  to  be  valuable.  There  is,  indeed, 
very  little  information  on  this  head  ;  but  they  are 
accused  of  prophesying  for  bread,  and  avarice  and 
a  greedy  appetite  for  the  good  things  of  this  life 
are  reproaches  frequently  cast  at  them.  It  is  not 
likely  that  prophecy  can  ever  have  been  a  paying 
profession,  but  it  would  appear  to  have  been  at 
least  a  means  of  livelihood  ;  and  there  are  indica- 
tions that  those  who  enjoyed  an  exceptional  popu- 
larity may  have  occupied  a  high  social  standing. 
Ezekiel,  whose  characterizations  of  the  false  proph- 
ets are  remarkably  striking,  uses  about  them  a  sig- 
nificant figure  of  speech.     He  says  that,   while  a 


144  THE    PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

true  prophet  was  like  a  wall  of  fire  to  his  country, 
standing  in  the  breach  when  danger  threatened  and 
defending  it  with  his  life,  the  false  prophets  were 
like  the  foxes  that  burrow  among  the  ruins  of  fallen 
cities.  What  mattered  it  to  them  that  their  coun- 
try was  degraded,  if  only  they  had  found  comforta- 
ble places  for  themselves  ? 

/     This  also  is  a  painful  side  of  the  subject.     It  is 
/  inevitable  that  the  ministry  should  become  a  means 
I  of  livelihood,  and  yet  it   is  fatal  to  pursue  it  with 
ithis  in  view.     It  is  the  least  lucrative  of  the  profes- 
sions,  and  yet,   in   the  pressure  of  modern  life,  it 
may  tempt  men    to  join  it  merely  as  a  profession. 
Even  if  it  has  been  entered  upon  from  higher  mo- 
tives, the  attrition  of  domestic  necessities  may  dry 
up   the   nobler   motives   and   convert   the    minister 
into  a   hireling  who  thinks   chiefly   of  his  wages.* 
The  commercial  spirit  is  nearly  omnipotent  in  our 
day;  and  men  who  can  buy  everything  for  money 


*  "  That  which  in  its  idea  is  the  divinest  of  earthy  employments  has 
necessarily  come  to  be  also  a  profession,  a  line  of  life,  with  its  routine, 
its  commonplace,  its  poverty  and  deterioration  of  motive,  its  coarseness 
of  feeling.  It  cannot  but  be  so.  It  is  part  of  the  conditions  of  our 
mortality.  Even  earnest  purpose,  even  zealous  and  laborious  service, 
cannot  alone  save  from  the  lowered  tone  and  dulness  of  spirit  which  are 
our  insensible  but  universal  and  inveterate  enemies  in  all  the  business 
of  real  life.  And  that  torpor  and  insensibility  and  deadness  to  what  is 
high  and  great  is,  more  than  any  other  evil,  the  natural  foe  of  all  that  is 
characteristic  and  essential  in  the  Christian  ministry  ;  for  that  ministry 
is  one  of  life  and  reality,  or  it  is  nothing." — Dean  Chukch. 


THE  r  REACH  ER  ASA   FALSE  PROPHET.     145 

think  that  ministers  are  procurable  in  the  same 
way.  Thus  they  tempt  men  away  with  bribes  of 
money  from  work  to  which  Gocl  has  called  them. 
I  am  far  from  questioning  the  importance  of  the 
mission  of  the  pulpit  to  the  wealthier  classes ;  and 
we  must  have  men  of  culture  to  preach  to  the  culti- 
vated. I  would  no  more  think  of  setting  up  the 
poor  against  the  rich,  as  the  exclusive  objects  of  the 
Church's  attention,  than  the  rich  against  the  poor. 
But  perhaps  the  most  essential  work  of  the  Church 
at  the  present  time  is  to  win  and  to  hold  the  work- 
ing classes.  I  should  like  to  see  ministers  coveting 
work  among  them  ;  and  let  him  who  has  learned  to 
wield  such  an  audience,  where  he  can  speak  with  the 
freedom  and  force  of  nature,  beware  of  being  bribed 
away  to  a  position  where  he  will  be  tamed  and  domes- 
ticated, and  have  his  teeth  drawn  and  his  claws  cut. 

So  monotonous  is  the  evil  side  of  the  false  prophets 
that  one  longs  for  a  gleam  of  something  good  in 
them.  Can  they  not  at  least  be  pitied  ?  May  they 
not  have  been  weak  men,  who  were  elevated  to  a 
position  which  proved  too  much  for  them  ?  The 
times  were  full  of  change  and  difficulty,  and  it 
required  a  clear  eye  to  see  the  indications  of  Provi- 
dence. It  is  not  everyone  who  has  the  genius  of  an 
Isaiah  or  the  magnificent  moral  courage  of  a  Jere- 


146  THE    PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

miah.  Was  it  not  possible  to  take  a  milder  view 
of  the  world  than  Jeremiah  did  and  yet  be  a  true 
man  ?  May  they  not  at  least  have  been  mistaken, 
when  they  ventured  to  emit  prophecies  which 
history  falsified  ? 

Such  sentiments  easily  arise  in  us  ;  but  they  are 
driven  back  by  what  we  read  of  the  personal  charac- 
ter of  these  men.  "  Both  prophet  and  priest,"  says 
Jeremiah,  "  are  profane  ;  yea,  in  My  house  have  I 
found  their  wickedness,  saith  the  Lord."  "  I  have 
seen,"  he  says  in  God's  name,  "  in  the  prophets  of 
Jerusalem  an  horrible  thing:  they  commit  adultery 
and  walk  in  lies."  Jeremiah's  view  of  them  might 
be  thought  to  be  coloured  by  his  own  melancholy 
temperament ;  but  Isaiah's  is  not  less  severe  :  "  The 
priest  and  the  prophet,"  he  says,  "  have  erred 
through  wine,  they  are  swallowed  up  of  wine,  they 
are  out  of  the  way  through  strong  drink."  And  he 
gives  this  terrible  picture  of  them  :  "His  watchmen 
are  blind,  they  are  ignorant ;  they  are  all  dumb 
dogs,  they  cannot  bark;  sleeping, lying  down,  loving 
to  slumber.  Yea,  they  are  greedy  dogs  which  can 
never  have  enough,  and  they  are  shepherds  that 
cannot  understand  ;  they  all  look  to  their  own  way, 
everyone  to  his  gain  from  his  quarter.  Come  ye, 
say  they,  I  will  fetch  wine,  and  we  will  fill  ourselves 
with  strong  drink  ;  and  to-morrow  shall  be  as  this 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A   FALSE  PROPHET.      147 

day  and  still  more  abundant."  The  representations 
in  the  other  prophets  are  to  the  same  effect.  Zeph- 
aniah  passes  on  the  whole  class  the  sweeping 
judgment,  that  they  are  light  and  treacherous  per- 
sons. But  the  lowest  deep  is  reached  in  Zechariah, 
who  foresees  a  time,  close  at  hand,  when  the  very 
name  of  prophet  will  be  a  byword,  and  the  father 
and  mother  of  anyone  who  pretends  to  prophesy 
will  thrust  him  through,  to  deliver  themselves  from 
the  reproach  of  having  any  connection  with  him.* 

The   influence   of  such   a  travesty  of  the  sacred 

office  as  these  passages  describe  must  have  been 
deplorable  ;  and  without  doubt  it  was  one  of  the 
principal  causes  of  the  overthrow  of  the  Jewish  State. 
Jeremiah  says  expressly,  that  from  the  prophets 
profaneness  had  gone  out  over  the  whole  land. 
They  who,  from  their  position  and  profession,  ought 
to  have  been  an  example  to  their  fellow-country- 
men were  the  very  reverse.  They  were  the  com- 
panions of  the  profane  and  licentious  in  their  revels, 
and  they  joined  with  scorners  in  scoffing  at  those 
who  led  a  strict  and  holy  life.  So  God  charges 
them  by  the  lips  of  Ezekiel :  "  Ye  have  made  the 
hearts  of  the  righteous  sad,  whom  I  have  not  made 

*  This  may  perhaps  help  to  determine  the  age  of  the  portion  of 
Zechariah  to  which  this  pas-age  belongs.  Is  there  any  proof  elsewhere 
that  a  degradation  of  the  prophetic  office  as  deep  as  this  had  taken 
place,  or  was  imminent,  at  the  period  to  which  it  is  usually  assigned  ? 


I 


148  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

sad,  and  strengthened  the  hands  of  the  wicked,  that 
he  should  not  return  from  his  wicked  way. 
r  This  is  a  terrible  picture.  Yet  there  have  been 
epochs  in  the  history  of  the  Christian,  and  even  of 
the  Protest*tint  Church,  when  its  features  have  been 
reproduced  with  too  faithful  literality.  Let  us  be 
thankful  that  we  live  in  a  happier  time ;  but  let  us 
also  remember  the  maxim,  "  Let  him  that  thinketh 
he  standeth  take  heed  lest  he  fall."  If  a  Church  lose 
the  Spirit  of  God,  there  is  no  depth  of  corruption  to 
which  it  may  not  rapidly  descend  ;  and  a  degraded 
Church  is  the  most  potent  factor  of  national  decay. 

Allow  me,  gentlemen,  to  say,  in  closing,  that  I 
believe  the  question,  what  is  to  be  the  type  and  the 
tone  of  the  ministry  in  any  generation,  is  decided 
in  the  theological  seminaries. —  What  the  students 
are  there,  the  ministers  of  the  country  will  be  by- 
and-by.  And,  while  the  discipline  of  the  authorities 
and  the  exhortations  and  example  of  professors  may 
do  something,  the  tone  of  the  college  is  determined 
by  the  students  themselves. !  The  state  of  feeling 
in  a  theological  seminary  ought  to  be  such,  that  any 
man  living  a  life  inconsistent  with  his  future  pro- 
fession should  feel  thoroughly  uncomfortable,  and 
have  the  conviction  driven  in  upon  his  conscience 
every  day,  that  the  ministry  is  no  place  for  him.j' 


LECTURE  VI. 
THE  PREACHER  AS  A  MAN 


11 


LECTURE  VI. 

THE    PREACHER   AS   A    MAN. 

GENTLEMEN,  in  the  foregoing  lectures  I  have 
finished,  as  far  as  time  permitted,  what  I  had 
to  say  on  the  work  of  our  office,  as  it  is  illustrated 
by  the  example  of  the  prophets  ;  and  to-day  we  turn 
to  the  other  branch  of  the  subject — to  study  the 
modern  work  of  the  ministry  in  the  light  cast  upon 
it  by  the  example  of  the  apostles. 

When  we  quit  the  Old  Testament  and  open  the 
New,  we  come  upon  another  great  line  of  preachers 
to  whom  we  must  look  up  as  patterns.  The  voice 
of  prophecy,  after  centuries  of  silence,  was  heard 
again  in  John  the  Baptist,  and  his  ministry  of  re- 
pentance will  always  have  its  value  as  indicating  a 
discipline  by  which  the  human  spirit  is  prepared  for 
comprehending  and  appreciating  Christ.  I  have 
already  given  the  reason  why  I  am  not  at  present 
to  touch  on  the  preaching  of  Christ  Himself,  al- 
though the  subject  draws  one's  mind  like  a  magnet. 
After  Christ,  the  first  great  Christian  preacher  was 
St.  Peter ;  and  between  him  and  St.  Paul  there  are 


152  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

many  subordinate  figures,  such  as  Stephen,  PhiHp  the 
Evangelist  and  Apollos, beside  whom  it  would  be  both 
pleasant  and  profitable  to  linger.  But  we  have  agreed 
to  take  St.  Paul  as  the  representative  of  apostolic 
preaching,  and  I  will  do  so  more  exclusively  than  I 
took  Isaiah  as  the  representative  of  the  prophets. 

It  is,  I  must  confess,  with  regret  that  I  pass  St. 
Peter  by.  There  is  a  peculiar  interest  attaching  to 
him  as  the  first  great  Christian  preacher  ;  and  there 
is  something  wonderfully  attractive  in  his  rude,  but 
vigorous  and  lovable  personality.  Besides,  a  study 
of  the  influences  by  which  he  was  transmuted  from 
the  unstable  and  untrustworthy  precipitancy  of  his 
earlier  career  into  the  rocklike  firmness  which  made 
him  fit  to  be  a  foundation-stone  on  which  the 
Church  was  built  would  have  taught  us  some  of  the 
most  important  truths  which  we  require  to  learn  ; 
because  these  influences  were,  first,  his  long  and 
close  intimacy  with  Christ  and,  secondly,  the  out- 
pouring on  him,  at  Pentecost,  of  the  Holy  Spirit ; 
and  there  are  no  influences  more  essential  than 
these  to  the  formation  of  the  ministerial  character. 

But  I  have  no  hesitation  in  devoting  to  St.  Paul 
the  remainder  of  this  course  ;  because,  as  I  indi- 
cated in  the  opening  lecture,  there  is  no  other  figure 
in  any  age  which  so  deserves  to  be  set  up  as  the 
model  of  Christian  ministers.     In  him  all  the  sides 


THE  PREACHER  ASA    MA.V.  15:5 

of  the  ministerial  character  were  developed  in  al- 
most supernatural  maturity  and  harmony  ;  and, 
besides,  the  materials  for  a  full  delineation  are 
available.  It  is  my  intention  to  speak  of  St.  Paul, 
first,  as  a  Man  ;  secondly,  as  a  Christian  ;  thirdly,  as 
an  Apostle  ;  and  fourthly,  as  a  Thinker. 

To-day,  then,  we  begin  with  St.  Paul  as  a  Man. 
If  I  had  had  time  to  set  before  you  what  St.  Peter's 
life  has  to  teach  us,  its  great  lesson  would  have 
been  what  Christianity  can  make  of  a  nature  with- 
out special  gifts  and  culture,  and  how  the  two  in- 
fluences which  formed  him — intimacy  with  Christ 
and  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit — can  supply  the 
place  of  talents  and  educational  advantages  ;  for  it  is 
evident  that,  but  for  Christ,  Peter  would  never  have 
been  anything  more  than  an  unknown  fisherman. 
But  St.  Paul's  case  teaches  rather  the  opposite  les- 
son— how  Christianity  can  consecrate  and  use  the 
gifts  of  nature,  and  how  talent  and  genius  find  their 
noblest  exercise  in  the  ministry  of  Christ.  Paul 
would,  in  all  probability,  have  made  a  notable  figure 
in  history,  even  if  he  had  never  become  a  Christian  ; 
and,  although  he  himself  delighted  to  refer  all  that  he 
became  and  did  to  Christ,  it  is  evident  that  the  big 
nature  of  the  man  entered  also  as  a  factor  into  his 
Christian  history. 


1.54  THE  PREACHER  AND    HIS  MODELS. 

Once  at  least  St.  Paul  recognises  this  point  of 
view  himself,  when  he  says,  that  God  separated  him 
to  His  service  from  his  mother's  womb.  In  Jere- 
miah's mind  the  same  idea  was  awakened  still  more 
distinctly  at  the  time  of  his  call,  when  Jehovah  said 
to  him,  "  Before  I  formed  thee  in  the  belly  I  knew 
thee,  and,  before  thou  earnest  forth  out  of  the  womb, 
I  sanctified  thee,  and  I  ordained  thee  a  prophet 
unto  the  nations,"  This  implies  that,  in  the  origi- 
nal formation  of  his  body  and  mind,  God  conferred 
on  him  those  gifts  which  made  him  capable  of  a 
great  career.  Here  we  touch  on  one  of  the  deepest 
mysteries  of  existence.  There  is  nothing  more  mys- 
terious than  the  behaviour  of  nature,  when  in  her  se- 
cret laboratories  she  presides  over  the  shaping  of  the 
rudiments  of  life  and  distributes  those  gifts,  which, 
according  as  they  are  bestowed  with  an  affluent  or 
a  niggardly  hand,  go  so  far  to  determine  the  station 
and  degree  which  each  shall  occupy  in  the  subse- 
quent competitions  of  the  world.  It  is  especially  mys- 
terious how  into  a  soul  here  and  there,  as  it  passes 
forth,  she  breathes  an  extra  whiff  of  the  breath  of 
life,  and  so  confers  on  it  the  power  of  being  and 
doing  what  others  attempt  to  be  and  do  in  vain. 

Undoubtedly  St.  Paul  was  one  of  these  favour- 
ites of  fortune.  Nature  designed  him  in  her  largest 
and    noblest    mould,    and    hid    in  his    composition 


THE   PREACHER   ASA    MAN.  155 

a  spark  of  celestial  fire.  This  showed  itself  in  a 
certain  tension  of  purpose  and  flame  of  energy 
which  marked  his  whole  career.  He  was  never  one 
of  those  pulpy,  shapeless  beings  who  are  always 
waiting  on  circumstances  to  determine  their  form  ; 
he  was  rather  the  stamp  itself,  which  impressed  its 
image  and  superscription  on  circumstances. 

I.  He  was  a  supremely  ethical  nature.  This  per- 
haps was  his  fundamental  peculiarity.  Life  could 
under  no  circumstances  have  seemed  to  him  a  trifle. 
The  sense  of  responsibility  was  strong  in  him  from 
the  beginning.  He  was  trained  in  a  strict  school ; 
for  the  la  v  of  life  prescribed  to  the  race  of  which  he 
was  a  member  was  a  severe  one  ;  but  he  responded 
to  it,  and  there  never  was  a  time  when  the  deepest 
passion  of  his  nature  was  not  to  receive  the  approval 
of  God.  Touching  the  righteousness  which  was  in 
the  law,  he  was  blameless.  After  his  conversion 
he  laid  bare  unreservedly  the  sins  of  his  past ;  but 
there  were  none  of  those  dalliances  with  the  flesh 
to  confess  into  which  soft  and  self-indulgent  natures 
easily  fall.  He  could  never  have  allowed  himself 
that  which  would  have  robbed  him  of  his  self-respect. 
His  sense  of  honour  was  keen.  When,  in  his  sub- 
sequent life,  he  was  accused  of  base  things — lying, 
hypocrisy,  avarice  and  darker  sins — he  felt  intense 
pain,  crying  out  like  one  wounded,  and  he  hurled 


156  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

the  accusations  from  him  with  the  energy  of  a  self- 
respecting  nature.  It  was  always  his  endeavour  to 
keep  a  conscience  void  of  offence  not  only  towards 
God,  but  also  towards  men  ;  and  one  of  his  most 
frequently  reiterated  injunctions  to  those  who  were 
in  any  way  witnesses  for  Christ  was  to  seek  to  ap- 
prove themselves  as  honest  men  even  to  those  who 
were  without.  He  was  speaking  out  of  his  own  heart 
when  he  said  to  all,  "  Whatsoever  things  are  true, 
whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatsoever  things  are 
pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things 
are  of  good  report :  if  there  be  any  virtue,  and  if 
there  be  any  praise,  think  on  these  things." 

I  cannot  help  pausing  here  to  say,  that  he  will 
never  be  a  preacher  who  does  not  know  how  to  get 
at  the  conscience  ;  but  how  should  he  know  who 
has  not  himself  a  keen  sense  of  honour  and  an  awful 
reverence  for  moral  purity?  We  are  making  a 
great  mistake  about  this.  We  are  preaching  to  the 
fancy,  to  the  imagination,  to  intellect,  to  feeling,  to 
will ;  and,  no  doubt,  all  these  must  be  preached  to  ; 
but  it  is  in  the  conscience  that  the  battle  is  to  be 
be  won  or  lost.*     The  great  difficulty  of  missionary 

*"  The  Sybarites  of  to-day  will  tolerate  a  sermoa  whicli  is  delicate 
enough  to  flatter  their  literary  sensuality  ;  but  it  is  their  taste  which  is 
charmed,  not  their  conscience  which  is  awakened  :  their  principle  of  con- 
duct escapes  untouched.  .  .  .  Amusement,  instruction,  morals,  are  dis- 
tinct genres."' — Amiel. 


THE  PREACHER   ASA    MAN:  157 

work  is  that  in  the  heathen  there  is,  as  a  rule, 
hardly  any  conscience :  it  has  almost  to  be  created 
before  they  can  be  Christianized.  In  many  parts  of 
Christendom  it  is  dying  out ;  and,  where  it  is  ex- 
tinct, the  whole  work  of  Christianity  has  to  be  done 
over  again. 

2.  St.  Paul's  intellectual  gifts  are  so  universally 
recognised  that  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  refer  to 
them.  They  are  most  conspicuously  displayed  in 
his  exposition  of  Christianity,  on  which  I  shall  speak 
in  the  closing  lecture.  But  in  the  meantime  I  re- 
mark, that  his  intellectual  make  was  not  at  all  that 
usually  associated  in  our  minds  with  the  system- 
builder. 

It  was,  indeed,  massive,  thorough  and  severe.  But 
it  was  not  in  the  least  degree  stiff  and  pedantic.  It 
was,  on  the  contrary,  an  intellect  of  marvelous  flexi- 
bility. There  was  no  material  to  which  it  could  not 
adapt  itself  and  no  feat  which  it  could  not  perform. 
You  may  observe  this,  for  example,  in  the  diverse 
ways  in  which  he  addresses  different  audiences.  In 
one  town  he  has  to  address  a  congregation  of  Jews; 
in  another  a  gathering  of  heathen  rustics  ;  in  a  third 
a  crowd  of  philosophers.  To  the  Jews  he  invariably 
speaks,  to  begin  with,  about  the  heroes  of  their  na- 
tional history  ;  to  the  ignorant  heathen  he  talks 
about    the    weather    and    the    crops ;    and    to   the 


158  THE   PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

Athenians  he  quotes  their  own  poets  and  deHvcrs 
a  high-strung  oration  ;  yet  in  every  case  he  arrives 
naturally  at  his  own  subject  and  preaches  the  gos- 
pel to  each  audience  in  the  language  of  its  own 
familiar  ideas.  Even  outside  of  his  own  peculiar 
sphere  altogether,  St.  Paul  was  equal  to  every  occa- 
sion. During  his  voyage  to  Rome,  when  the  skill 
of  the  sailors  was  baffled  and  the  courage  of  the 
soldiers  worn  out  by  the  long-continued  stress  of 
weather,  he  alone  remained  cheerful  and  clear- 
headed ;  he  virtually  became  captain  of  the  ship, 
and  he  saved  the  lives  of  his  fellow-passengers  over 
and  over  again. 

We  think  of  the  intellect  of  the  system-builder  as 
cold.  But  there  is  never  any  coldness  about  St. 
Paul's  mind.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  always  full  of 
life  and  all  on  fire.  He  can,  indeed,  reason  closely 
and  continuously ;  but,  every  now  and  then,  his 
[thought  bursts  up  through  the  argument  like  a 
flaming  geyser  and  falls  in  showers  of  sparks.  Then 
the  argument  resumes  its  even  tenor  again ;  but 
these  outbursts  are  the  finest  passages  in  St.  Paul. 
In  the  same  way,  Shakespeare,  I  have  observed, 
while  moving  habitually  on  a  high  level  of  thought 
and  music,  will,  every  now  and  then,  pause  and, 
spreading  his  wings,  go  soaring  and  singing  like  a 
lark  sheer   up  into  the   blue.     When   the  thought 


THE   rREACflER  ASA    jVAjV.  150 

which  has  Hfted  liim  is  exhausted,  he  gracefully  de- 
scends and  resumes  on  the  former  level  ;  but  these 
fliglits  are  the  finest  passages  in  Shakespeare. 

3.  The  intellectual  superiority  of  St.  Paul  is  univer- 
sally acknowledged  ;  and  to  those  who  only  know 
him  at  a  distance  this  is  his  outstanding  peculiarity. 
hut  the  close  student  of  his  life  and  character  knows, 
that,  great  as  he  was  in  intellect,  he  was  equally 
great  in  heart,  perhaps  even  greater.  One  of  the 
subtlest  students  of  his  life,  the  late  Adolphc  MonoJ, 
of  the  French  Church,  has  fixed  on  this  as  the  key 
to  his  character.  He  calls  him  the  Man  of  Tears, 
and  shows  with  great  persuasiveness  that  herein  lay 
the  secret  of  his  power. 

It  is  certainly  remarkable,  when  you  begin  to  look 
into  the  subject,  how  often  we  see  St.  Paul  in  the 
emotional  mood,  and  even  in  tears.  In  his  famous 
address  to  the  Ephesian  elders  he  reminded  them 
that  he  had  served  the  Lord  among  them  with  many 
tears,  and  again,  that  he  had  not  ceased  to  warn 
everyone  night  and  day  with  tears.  It  is  not  what 
we  should  have  expected  in  a  man  of  such  intellect- 
ual power.  But  this  makes  his  tears  all  the  more 
impressive.  When  a  weak,  effeminate  man  weeps, 
he  only  makes  himself  ridiculous  ;  but  it  is  a  dif- 
ferent spectacle  when  a  man  like  St.  Paul  is  seen 
weeping;  because  we  know  that  the  strong  nature 


100  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

could  not  have  been  bent  except  by  a  storm  of 
feeling. 

His  affection  for  his  converts  is  something  ex- 
traordinary. Some  have  believed  that  there  is  evi- 
dence to  prove  that  in  youth  his  heart  had  suffered  a 
terrible  bereavement.  It  is  supposed  that  he  had 
been  married,  but  lost  his  wife  early.  He  never 
sought  to  replace  the  loss,  and  he  never  spoke  of  it. 
But  the  affection  of  his  great  heart,  long  pent  up, 
rushed  forth  into  the  channel  of  his  work.  His  con- 
verts were  to  him  in  place  of  wife  and  children. 
His  passion  for  them  is  like  a  strong  natural  affec- 
tion. His  epistles  to  them  are,  in  many  places,  as 
like  as  they  can  be  to  love-letters.  Listen  to  the 
terms  in  which  he  addresses  them  :  "  Ye  are  in  our 
heart  to  die  and  live  with  you  " ;  "I  will  very 
gladly  spend  and  be  spent  for  you,  though,  the  more 
abundantly  I  love  you,  the  less  I  be  loved  "  ;  ''  There- 
fore, my  brethren,  dearly  beloved  and  longed  for, 
so  stand  fast  in  the  Lord,  my  dearly  beloved." 

To  his  fellow-labourers  in  the  Gospel  especially, 
his  heart  went  out  in  unbounded  affection.  The  long 
lists  of  greetings  at  the  close  of  his  epistles,  in  which 
the  characters  and  services  of  individuals  are  referred 
to  with  such  overflowing  generosity  and  yet  with  such 
fine  discrimination,  are  unconscious  monuments  to 
the  largeness  of  his  heart.    He  could  hardly  mention  a 


THE  PREACHER  ASA    MAN.  161 

fellow-worker  without  breaking  forth  into  a  glowing 
panegyric:  "Whether  any  do  inquire  of  Titus,  he  is 
my  partner  and  fellow-helper  concerning  you  ;  or  our 
brethren  be  inquired  of,  they  are  the  messengers  of 
the  churches  and  the  glory  of  Christ." 

There  is  no  more  conclusive  proof  of  the  depth 
and  sincerity  of  St.  Paul's  heart  than  the  affection 
which  he  inspired  in  others;  for  it  is  only  the  loving 
who  are  loved.  None  perhaps  are  more  discriminat- 
ing in  this  respect  than  young  men.  A  hard  or 
pedantic  nature  cannot  win  them.  But  St.  Paul  was 
constantly  surrounded  with  troops  of  young  men, 
who,  attracted  by  his  personality,  were  willing  to 
follow  him  through  fire  and  water  or  to  go  on  his 
messages  wherever  he  might  send  them.  And  that 
he  could  v/in  mature  minds  in  the  same  way  is 
proved  by  the  great  scene  at  Miletus,  already  referred 
to,  where  the  elders  of  Ephesus,  at  parting  with  him, 
"all  wept  sore,  and  fell  on  Paul's  neck  and  kissed 
him,  sorrowing  most  of  all  for  the  word  which  he 
said,  that  they  should  see  his  face  no  more." 

The  nature  of  St.  Paul's  work  no  doubt  immensely 
developed  this  side  of  his  character,  but,  before  pass- 
ing from  the  subject,  it  is  worth  remembering  how  the 
circumstances  of  his  birth  and  upbringing  were  prov- 
identially fitted  to  broaden  his  sympathies,  even  be- 
fore he  became  a  Christian.     He  was  not  simply  a 


162  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

Jew,  but  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews;  and  he  felt  all 
the  pride  of  a  child  of  that  race  to  which  pertained 
the  adoption  and  the  glory  and  the  covenant,  and 
the  giving  of  the  law,  and  the  service  of  God,  and 
the  promises.  He  could  always  put  himself  in  touch 
at  once  with  a  Jewish  audience  by  going  back  on 
associations  which  were  as  dear  to  himself  as  to 
them.  Yet,  although  so  thoroughly  a  Jew,  he  be- 
longed by  birth  to  a  larger  world.  He  was  not  born 
within  the  boundaries  of  Palestine,  where  his  sym- 
pathies would  have  been  cramped  and  his  horizon 
narrowed,  but  in  a  Gentile  city,  famous  for  its  beauty, 
its  learning  and  its  commerce  ;  and  he  was,  besides, 
a  freeborn  citizen  of  Rome.  We  know  from  his 
own  lips  that  he  was  proud  of  both  distinctions; 
and  he  thus  acquired  a  cosmopolitan  spirit  and 
learned  to  think  of  himself  as  a  man  amongst  men. 
Nor  ought  we,  perhaps,  to  omit  here  to  recall  the 
fact,  that  he  learned  in  his  youth  the  handicraft  of 
tent-making.  This  brought  him  into  close  contact 
with  common  men,  whose  language  he  learned  to 
speak  and  whose  life  he  learned  to  know — acquire- 
ments which  were  to  be  of  supreme  utility  in  his 
subequent  career. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  generally  agreed  that  a  certain 
modicum  of  natural  gifts  is  necessary  for  those  who 


THE   PREACHER   ASA    MAN.  1G3 

think  of  entering  the  ministry.  Here  is  Luther's  list 
of  the  qualifications  of  a  minister:  you  will  observe 
that  most  of  them  are  gifts  of  nature  :  i.  He  should 
be  able  to  teach  plainly  and  in  order.  2.  He  should 
have  a  good  head.  3.  Good  power  of  language.  4. 
A  good  voice.  5.  A  good  memory.  6.  He  should 
know  when  to  stop.  7.  He  should  be  sure  of  what 
he  means  to  say.  8.  And  be  ready  to  stake  body 
and  soul,  goods  and  reputation,  on  its  truth.  9.  He 
should  study  diligently.  10.  And  suffer  himself  to 
be  vexed  and  criticized  by  everyone. 

The  first  consciousness  of  the  possession  of  un- 
usual powers  is  not  unfrequently  accompanied  by  an 
access  of  vanity  and  self-conceit.  The  young  soul 
glories  in  the  sense,  probably  vastly  exaggerated,  of 
its  own  pre-eminence  and  anticipates,  on  an  unlim- 
ited scale,  the  triumphs  of  the  future.  But  there  is 
another  way  in  which  this  discovery  may  act.  The 
consciousness  of  unusual  powers  may  be  accom- 
panied with  a  sense  of  unusual  responsibility,  the 
soul  inquiring  anxiously  about  the  intention  of  the 
Giver  of  all  gifts  in  conferring  them.  It  was  in  this 
way  that  Jeremiah  was  affected  by  the  information 
that  special  gifts  had  been  conferred  on  him  in  the 
scene  to  which  I  have  already  referred  in  this  lecture. 
He  concluded  at  once  that  he  had  been  blessed  with 
exceptional  talents  in  order  that  he  might  serve  his 


164  THE   PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

God  and  his  country  with  them.  And  surely  in  a 
gifted  nature  there  could  be  no  saner  ambition  than, 
if  God  permitted  it,  to  devote  its  powers  to  the 
ministry  of  His   Son. 

There  is  no  other  profession  which  is  so  able  to 
absorb  and  utilise  talents  of  every  description.  This 
is  manifest  in  regard  to  such  talents  as  those  men- 
tioned by  Luther — a  good  voice,  a  good  memory, 
etc.  But  there  is  hardly  a  power  or  an  attainment  of 
any  kind  which  a  minister  cannot  use  in  his  work. 
How  philosophical  power  can  serve  him  may  be  seen 
in  the  preaching  of  Dr.  Chalmers,  whose  sermons 
were  always  cast  in  a  philosophical  mould.  The 
philosophy  was  not  very  deep ;  it  was  not  too  dif- 
ficult for  the  common  man  ;  but  it  gave  the  preach- 
ing a  decided  air  of  distinction.  How  scientific 
acquirements  may  be  utilised  is  shown  in  the  sermons 
of  some  of  our  foremost  living  preachers,  who  find  an 
inexhaustible  supply  of  illustrations  in  their  scientific 
studies.  Literary  style  may  supply  the  feather  to 
wing  the  arrow  of  truth  to  its  mark.  That  poetic 
power  may  serve  the  preacher  it  is  not  necessary  to 
prove  on  the  spot  where  Ray  Palmer  wrote  "  My 
faith  looks  up  to  Thee."  Business  capacity  Is  needed 
in  church  courts  and  in  the  management  of  a  con- 
gregation. In  some  other  professions  men  have 
to  bury  half  their  talents ;  but  in   ours  there  is  no 


THE   PREACHER  ASA    MAN.  165 

talent  which  will  not  find  appropriate  and  useful 
exercise. 

We  perhaps  lay  too  much  stress,  however,  on  intel- 
lectual gifts  and  attainments.  These  are  the  only 
ones  which  are  tested  by  our  examinations  in  col- 
lege;  yet  there  are  moral  qualities  which  are  just  as 
essential. 

The  polish  given  by  education  tells,  no  doubt ;  but 
the  size  of  the  primordial  mass  of  manhood  tells  still 
more.  In  a  quaint  book  of  Reminiscences  recently 
published  from  the  pen  of  a  notable  minister  of  the 
last  generation  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  Mr. 
Sage  of  Resolis,  there  is  a  criticism  recorded,  which 
was  passed  by  a  parishioner  on  three  successive 
ministers  of  a  certain  parish :  "  Our  first  minister," 
said  he,  "  was  a  man,  but  he  was  not  a  minister ; 
our  second  was  a  minister,  but  he  was  not  a  man  ; 
and  the  one  we  have  at  present  is  neither  a  man  nor 
a  minister." 

There  is  no  demand  which  people  make  more  im- 
peratively in  our  day  than  that  their  minister  should 
be  a  man.  It  is  not  long  since  a  minister  was  certain 
of  being  honoured  simply  because  he  belonged  to 
the  clerical  profession  and  wore  the  clerical  garb. 
People,  as  the  saying  was,  respected  his  cloth.  But 
ours  is  a  democratic  age,  and  that  state  of  public 

feeling  is  passing  away.    There  is  no  lack  of  respect, 
12 


166  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

indeed,  for  ministers  who  are  worthy  of  the  name ; 
perhaps  there  is  more  of  it  than  ever.  But  it  is  not 
given  now  to  clerical  pretensions,  but  only  to  proved 
merit.  People  do  not  now  respect  the  cloth,  unless 
they  find  a  man  inside  it. 

Perhaps  the  educational  preparation  through  which 
we  pass  at  college  is  not  too  favourable  to  this  kind 
of  power.  In  the  process  of  cutting  and  polishing 
the  natural  size  of  the  diamond  runs  the  risk  of  being 
reduced.  When  we  are  all  passed  through  the  same 
mill,  we  are  apt  to  come  out  too  much  alike.  A  man 
ought  to  be  himself.  Your  Emerson  preached  this 
doctrine  with  indefatigable  eloquence.  Perhaps  he 
exaggerated  it ;  but  it  is  a  true  doctrine ;  and  it  is 
emphatically  a  doctrine  for  preachers.  What  an 
audience  looks  for,  before  everything  else,  in  the 
texture  of  a  sermon  is  the  bloodstreak  of  experience ; 
and  truth  is  doubly  and  trebly  true  when  it  comes 
from  a  man  who  speaks  as  if  he  had  learned  it  by  his 
own  work  and  suffering. 

It  will  generally  be  noticed  in  any  man  who 
makes  a  distinct  mark  as  a  preacher  that  there  is  in 
his  composition  some  peculiarity  of  endowment  or 
attainment  on  which  he  has  learned  to  rely.  It  may 
be  an  emotional  tenderness  as  in  McCheyne,  or  a 
moral  intensity  as  in  Robertson  of  Brighton,  or  in- 
tellectual subtlety  as  in  Candlish,  or  psychological 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    MAN.  167 

insight  as  in  Beecher.  But  something  distinctive 
there  must  be,  and,  therefore,  one  of  the  wisest  of 
rules  is,  Cultivate  your  strong  side. 

But  what  tells  most  of  all  is  the  personality  as  a 
whole.  This  is  one  of  the  prime  elements  in  preach- 
ing. The  effect  of  a  sermon  depends,  first  of  all,  on 
what  is  said,  and  pext,  on  how  it  is  said  ;  but,  hardly 
less,  on  who  says  it.  There  are  men,  says  Emerson, 
who  are  heard  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  though  they 
speak  in  a  whisper.*  We  are  so  constituted  that 
what  we  hear  depends  very  much  for  its  effect  on 
how  we  are  disposed  towards  him  who  speaks.  The 
regular  hearers  of  a  minister  gradually  form  in  their 
minds,  almost  unawares,  an  image  of  what  he  is,  into 
w^hich  they  put  everything  which  they  themselves 
remember  about  him  and  everything  which  they  have 
heard  of  his  record  ;  and,  when  he  rises  on  Sunday 
in  the  pulpit,  it  is  not  the  man  visible  there  at  the 
moment  that  they  listen  to,  but   this  image,  which 

*  The  finest  description  of  a  speaker  known  to  me  is  this  of  Lord 
Bacon  in  Ben  Jonson's  Discoveries  ;  and  it  is  evident  that  it  was  the 
man  rather  than  the  manner  or  even  the  matter  which  made  the  im- 
pression :  "Yet  there  happened  in  my  time  one  noble  speaker,  who  was 
full  of  gravity  in  his  speaking.  His  language,  where  he  could  spare  or 
pass  by  a  jest,  was  nobly  censorious.  No  man  ever  spake  more  neatly, 
more  pressly,  more  weightily,  or  suffered  less  emptiness,  less  idleness,  in 
what  he  uttered.  No  member  of  his  speech  but  consisted  of  his  own 
graces.  His  hearers  could  not  cough,  or  look  aside  from  him,  without 
loss.  He  commanded  where  he  spoke ;  and  had  his  judges  angry  and 
pleased  at  his  devotion.  No  man  had  their  affections  more  in  his  power. 
The  fear  of  every  man  that  heard  him  was,  lest  he  should  make  an  end." 


168  THE   PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

stands  behind  him  and  determines  the  precise  weight 
and  effect  of  every  sentence  which  he  utters. 

Closely  connected  with  the  force  of  personality  is 
the  other  power,  which  St.  Paul  possessed  in  so 
supreme  a  degree,  of  taking  an  interest  in  others. 
It  is  the  manhood  in  ourselves  which  enables  us  to 
understand  the  human  nature  of  our  hearers ;  and 
we  must  have  had  experience  of  life,  if  we  are  to 
preach  to  the  life  of  men. 

Some  ministers  do  this  extremely  little.  Not 
once  but  many  a  time,  I  have  heard  a  minister  on 
the  Sabbath  morning,  when  he  rose  up  and  began 
to  pray,  plunging  at  once  into  a  theological  medi- 
tation ;  and  in  all  the  prayers  of  the  forenoon  there 
would  scarcely  be  a  single  sentence  making  refer- 
ence to  the  life  of  the  people  during  the  week. 
Had  you  been  a  stranger  alighted  from  another 
planet,  you  would  never  have  dreamed  that  the 
human  beings  assembled  there  had  .been  toiling, 
rejoicing  and  sorrowing  for  six  days ;  that  they  had 
mercies  to  give  thanks  for  and  sins  to  be  forgiven ; 
or  that  they  had  children  at  home  to  pray  for  and 
sons  across  the  sea. 

There  is  an  unearthly  style  of  preaching,  if  I  may 
use  the  term,  without  the  blood  of  human  life  in  it : 
the  people  with   their  burdens   in  the   pews — the 


THE   PREACHER   AS  A    MAN.  1G9 

burden  of  home,  the  burden  of  business,  the  burden 
of  the  problems  of  the  day — whilst,  in  the  pulpit, 
the  minister  is  elaborating  some  nice  point,  which 
has  taken  his  fancy  in  the  course  of  his  studies,  but 
has  no  interest  whatever  for  them.  Only  now  and 
then  a  stray  sentence  may  pull  up  their  wandering 
attention.  Perhaps  he  is  saying,  "  Now  some  of 
you  may  reply  "  ;  and  then  follows  an  objection  to 
what  he  has  been  stating  which  no  actual  human 
being  would  ever  think  of  making.  But  he  pro- 
ceeds elaborately  to  demolish  it,  while  the  hearer, 
knowing  it  to  be  no  objection  of  his,  retires  into  his 
own  interior. 

If  what  was  said  in  ■  a  former  lecture  about  the 
distinctive  difference  between  the  preaching  of  the 
Old  Testament  and  that  of  the  new  be  considered, 
it  will  at  once  be  recognised  how  vital  is  this  aspect 
of  the  matter.  The  prophets  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, in  common  with  the  thinkers  of  antiquity  in 
general,  thought  of  men  in  masses  and  regarded  the 
individual  only  as  a  fragment  of  a  larger  whole. 
But  Christ  introduced  an  entirely  new  way  of  think- 
ing. To  Him  the  individual  was  a  whole  in  him- 
self; beneath  the  habiliments  of  even  the  humblest 
member  of  the  human  family  there  wqs  hidden  what 
was  more  precious  than  the  entire  material  world; 
and  on  the  issues  of  every  life  was  suspended  an 


170  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

immortal  destiny.  This  faith  may  be  said  to  have 
made  Jesus  Christ  the  Saviour  of  the  world  ;  for 
He  saw  in  the  lost  children  of  men  that  which 
made  Him  live  to  seek  them  and  die  to  save  them. 
And  it  is  by  this  same  faith  and  vision  that  anyone 
is  qualified  to  be  a  fellow-worker  with  Christ.  No 
one  will  ever  be  able  to  engage  with  any  success  in 
the  work  of  human  salvation  who  does  not  see  men 
to  be  infinitely  the  most  interesting  objects  in  the 
world,  and  who  does  not  stand  in  awe  before  the 
solemn  destiny  and  the  sublime  possibilities  of  the 
soul.  It  is  by  the  growth  and  the  glow  of  this  faith 
that  the  worth  of  all  ministerial  work  is  measured. 

It  is  far  easier,  however,  to  acknowledge  this  view 
in  the  abstract  than  to  cherish  it  habitually  towards 
the  actual  men  and  women  of  our  own  sphere  and 
our  own  vicinity.  That  man  is  the  most  interest- 
ing object  in  the  world  ;  that  the  soul  is  precious  ; 
and  that  it  is  better  for  a  human  being  to  lose  the 
whole  world  than  to  miss  his  destiny — these  are 
now  commonplaces,  which  everyone  who  bears 
the  Christian  name  will  acknowledge.  Yet  in  real- 
ity few  live  under  their  power.  Many  a  one  who 
has  paid  the  tribute  of  love  and  admiration  to  the 
spectacle  of  Christ's  compassion  for  the  outcasts, 
and  melted  with  aesthetic  emotion  before  a  picture 
of  the  Woman  taken  in  Adultery  or  the  Woman  that 


THE   PREACHER    AS  A    MAN.  HI 


was  a  Sinner,  has  never  once  attempted  to  save  an 
actual  woman  of  the  same  kind  in  his  own  city,  and 
would  be  utterly  at  a  loss  if  such  a  one,  in  an  hour 
of  remorse,  were  to  throw  herself  on  his  pity  and 
protection.  There  is  a  great  difference  between  a 
sinner  in  a  book  or  a  picture  and  a  sinner  in  the 
flesh.  Multitudes  in  their  hearts  believe  that  all 
the  remarkable  and  interesting  people  lived  long 
ago  or  that,  at  any  rate,  if  any  are  now  alive,  they 
live  many  miles  away  from  their  vicinity.  They  be- 
lieve that  there  were  remarkable  people  in  the  first 
or  the  ninth  century,  but  by  no  means  in  the  nine- 
teenth ;  they  believe  that  there  are  interesting  peo- 
ple in  Paris  or  London  or  New  York  ;  but  they  have 
never  discovered  anything  wonderful  in  those  liv- 
iner  in  their  own  village  or  in  their  own  street. 
Many  who  consider  themselves  enlightened  will  tell 
you  that  their  neighbours  are  a  poor  lot.  They  fancy 
that,  if  they  were  living  somewhere  else,  fifty  or  a 
hundred  miles  away,  they  would  find  company 
worthy  of  themselves ;  though  it  is  ten  to  one  that, 
if  they  made  the  change,  their  new  neighbours 
would  be  a  poor  lot  also. 

If  a  minister  allows  himself  to  harbour  sentiments 
of  this  sort,  he  is  lost.*     No  one  will  ever  win  men 

*  It  has  often  astonished  me  to  observe  how  easily  ministers'  wives 
in  this  respect  find  for  themselves  the  right  path.     One  wou'd  think  it 


172  THE   PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

who  does  not  believe  in  them.  The  true  minister 
must  be  able  to  see  in  the  meanest  man  and  woman 
a  revelation  of  the  whole  of  human  nature  ;  and  in 
the  peasant  in  the  field,  and  even  the  infant  in  the 
cradle,  connections  which  reach  forth  high  as  heaven 
and  far  as  eternity.  All  that  is  greatest  in  king 
or  kaiser  exists  in  the  poorest  of  his  subjects;  and 
the  elements  out  of  which  the  most  delicate  and 
even  saintly  womanhood  is  made  exist  in  the  com- 
monest woman  who  walks  the  streets.  The  harp 
of  human  nature  is  there  with  all  its  strings  com- 
plete ;  and  it  will  not  refuse  its  music  to  him  who 
has  the  courage  to  take  it  up  and  boldly  strike  the 
strings.  The  great  preacher  is  he  who,  wherever  he 
is  speaking,  among  high  or  low,  goes  straight  for 
those  elements  which  are  common  to  all  men,  and 
casts  himself  with  confidence  on  men's  intelligence 
and  experience,  believing  that  the  just  suggestions 
of  reason  and  the  terrors  of  conscience,  the  sense 
of  the  nobility  of  goodness  and  the  pathos  of  love 
and  pity  are  common  to  them  all.* 

would  be  very  difficult  sometimes  for  those  who  have  been  brought  up 
in  cities  or  in  a  secluded  circle  to  adapt  themselves  suddenly  to  a  i emote 
£ind  unselect  society  ;  and  they  have  not,  like  their  husbands,  iiad  the 
opportunity  of  meditating  long  on  the  duties  of  a  public  p  sition.  A  hearty 
and  cordial  humanity  in  the  members  of  a  minister's  family  lends  an  im- 
mense assistance  to  his  work.  A  minister  ought  to  belong  to  no  class  of 
society,  but  to  have  the  power  of  moving  without  constraint  in  every  class. 
*  "  Not  a  heart  but  has  its  romance,  not  a  life  which  does  not  hide  a 
secret  which   is  either  its  thorn  or  its  spur.      Everywhere  grief,  hope, 


THE   PREACHER   ASA    AT  AN.  173 

Let  me  close  this  lecture  with  a  few  words  on  a 
great  subject,  to  which  a  whole  lecture  might  have 
been  profitably  devoted. 

No  safer  piece  of  advice  could  be  tendered  you 
than  to  let  the  beginning  of  your  ministry  be  marked 
by  care  for  the  young.  This  is  work  which  more 
than  any  other  will  encourage  yourselves,  and  it  is 
more  likely  than  any  other  to  establish  you  in  the 
affections  of  a  congregation. 

To  work  successfully  among  children  you  must 
know  their  life  and  have  the  entree  of  their  little 
world  of  interests,  excitements,  prizes  and  hopes. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  get  it,  if  only  we  are  simple 
and  genuine.  Children  will  approach  their  minister 
gladly,  and  make  him  their  confidant,  if  only  he  is 
accessible  to  them.  By  the  ministers  of  an  older 
generation  they  were  kept  at  an  awful  distance. 
When  they  were  out  of  temper  or  doing  wrong, 
they  were  threatened  with  a  visit  from  the  minister 
in  the  same  way  as  they  might  be  threatened  with 
the  policeman,  of  the  parish  beadle,  or  a  still  more 
awful  functionary  of  the  universe.  This,  let  us  hope, 
has  passed  away,  and  in  most  parishes  a  ministerial 
visit  is  spoken  of  as  a  promise  instead  of  a  threat. 

comedy,  tragedy;  even  under  the  petrifacli'm  of  ■  la  age,  as  in  the 
twisted  forms  of  fossils,  we  may  discover  the  agitations  and  tortures  of 
youth.  This  thought  is  the  magic  wand  of  poets  and  preachers." — 
Amiel. 


174  THE  PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

A  minister  is  proud  nowadays  if  a  child  flies  up  to 
him  in  the  street  and  ruffles  his  feathers  with  bois- 
terous famiharity,  or  if  a  group  of  children  pin  him 
into  the  corner  of  a  room  and  order  him,  under 
pains  and  penalties,  to  tell  them  a  story.  We  are 
returning  to  the  ideal  of  Goldsmith,  in  the  Deserted 
Village  :— 

"  The  service  past,  around  the  pious  man 

With  steady  zeal  each  loyal  rustic  ran  ; 

Even  children  followed  with  endearing  wile, 

And  plucked  his  gown  to  share  the  good  man's  smile." 

More  important  even  than  accessibility  is  genuine 
respect  for  the  children. 

We  ought  to  respect  their  intelligence.  When 
we  are  preaching  to  them,  we  should  give  them  our 
very  best.  I  venture  to  say,  that  a  much  larger 
proportion  of  the  sermons  preached  to  children  is 
never  written  out  than  of  sermons  to  adults.  The 
preacher,  having  thought  of  two  or  three  lines  of 
remark  and  got  hold  of  two  or  three  stories,  enters 
the  pulpit  with  these  materials  lying  loosely  in  his 
mind,  and  trusts  to  the  moment  for  the  style  of  the 
sermon.  Of  course,  if  a  man  has  trained  himself  to 
preach  in  this  way  always,  it  is  all  right ;  but,  if 
not,  it  is  a  mistake.  Children  are  greatly  affected 
by  felicity  of  arrangement  and  the  music  of  lan- 
guage ;  they  do  not  know  to  what  their  pleasure  is 


THE   PREACHER  AS  A   MAN.  1V5 

due,  but  they  feel  it ;  and,  if  a  preacher  has  the 
power  of  original  thought  or  of  beautiful  diction, 
there  is  no  occasion  when  he  should  be  more  lib- 
eral in  the  use  of  it  than  when  he  is  addressing 
them.*  The  truth  is,  it  is  a  complete  mistake  to 
make  the  children's  sermon  so  different  from  other 
sermons  as  to  create  the  impression  that  it  is  the 
only  utterance  from  the  pulpit  to  which  they  are 
expected  to  listen.  It  is  not  easy  to  get  children 
to  begin  to  listen  at  all  to  what  is  said  in  church  ; 
the  children's  sermon  is  a  device  to  catch  their  at- 
tention ;  but  it  ought  also  to  be  a  bridge  conduct- 
ing them  over  to  the  habit  of  listening  to  all  that  is 
said  there.  If  they  acquire  the  habit,  they  are  our 
best  hearers.  A  boy  of  twelve  or  thirteen  can  fol- 
low nearly  anything;  and  there  is  no  keener  critic 
of  the  logic  of  a  discourse  or  warmer  appreciator  of 
any  passage  which  is  worthy  of  admiration. 

But,  while  we  respect  the  intelligence  of  the 
young,  there  is  something  else  which  we  need  to 
believe  in  still   more.     We  do  not  half  realise   the 


*  This  may  be  a  reason  for  rather  devoting  a  whole  diet  of  worship  to 
the  children  once  a  month  or  once  a  quarter  than  only  giving  them  a  few 
minutes  every  Sabbath.  But  many  follow  the  lat'er  practice  with  excel- 
lent results.  Perhaps  there  ought  to  be  something  specially  for  the  chil- 
dren at  every  service.  If  I  may  mention  my  own  practice,  I  have,  during 
my  whole  ministry,  preached  to  children  once  a  month  ;  and  every  Sun- 
day I  have  a  children's  hymn  in  the  forenoon  and  a  prayer  for  children 
in  the  afternoon. 


17G  THE   PREACHER  AND   IIlS  MODELS. 

drama  of  religious  impression  going  on  in  the  minds 
of  children.  We  forget  our  own  childhood  and  the 
movements  excited  in  our  childish  breasts  under 
the  preaching  o^  the  Word — how  real  the  things 
unseen  were  to  us;  how  near  God  was,  His  eye 
flashing  on  us  through  the  darkness  ;  how  our  hearts 
melted  at  the  sufferings  of  Christ ;  how  they 
swelled  with  unselfish  aspirations  as  we  listened  to 
the  stories  of  heroic  lives;  how  distinctly  the  voice 
of  conscience  spoke  within  us;  and  how  we  trem- 
bled at  the  prospect  of  death,  judgment  and  eter- 
nity. What  we  were  then,  other  children  are  now  ; 
and  what  went  on  in  us  is  going  on  in  them.  It 
is  the  man  who  believes  this  and  reveres  it  who 
will  reap  the  harvest  in  the  field  of  childhood. 

There  is  no  surer  way  to  secure  for  ourselves  the 
interest  of  the  old  than  to  take  an  interest  in  the 
young.  Of  course  a  forced  interest  in  children, 
shown  with  this  in  view,  would  be  hypocrisy  and 
deserve  contempt.  We  must  love  the  children  for 
their  own  sakes.  Yet  we  may  quite  legitimately 
nourish  our  interest  in  the  young  by  observing  that 
it  is  one  of  the  strongest  instincts  of  human  nature 
which  makes  fathers  and  mothers  feel  kindnesses 
shown  to  their  children  to  be  the  greatest  benefits 
which  can  be  conferred  on  themselves.  An  Edin- 
burgh minister,  who  has  had  conspicuous  success  in 


THE   PREACHER  AS  A    MAM.  177 

preaching  to  children  as  well  as  in  every  other  de- 
partment of  the  work  of  his  sacred  office,  once,  in  a 
gathering  of  divinity  students,  of  whom  I  was  one, 
told  an  incident  from  his  own  life  which  is  almost 
too  sacred  to  be  repeated  by  any  lips  except  his 
own,  but  which  I  hope  he  will  excuse  me  for  en- 
riching you  with,  as  it  puts  in  a  memorable  form 
one  of  the  truest  secrets  of  ministerial  success.  On 
the  morning  of  the  day  when  he  was  going  to  be 
ordained  to  his  first  charge,  he  Avas  leaving  his 
home  in  the  country  to  travel  to  the  city,  and  his 
mother  came  to  the  door  to  bid  him  good-bye. 
Holding  his  hand  at  parting,  she  said,  "You  are 
going  to  be  ordained  to-day,  and  you  will  be  told 
your  duty  by  those  who  know  it  far  better  than  I 
do  ;  but  I  wish  you  to  remember  one  thing  which 
perhaps  they  may  not  tell  you — remember,  that, 
whenever  you  lay  your  hand  on  a  child's  head,  you 
are  laying  it  on  its  mother's  heart." 


LECTURE  VII. 
THE  PREACHER  AS  A  CHRISTIAN 


LECTURE  VII. 

THE   PREACHER   AS   A   CHRISTIAN. 

IN  the  last  lecture  I  spoke  of  St.  Paul  as  a  Man, 
showing  how  remarkable  were  his  endowments 
and  acquirements,  and  how  these  told  in  his  apos- 
tolic career.  But  it  was  not  through  these  that  he 
was  what  he  was.  Great  as  were  the  gifts  bestowed 
on  him  by  nature  and  cultivated  by  education,  they 
were  utterly  inadequate  to  produce  a  character  and 
a  career  like  his.  It  was  what  Christianity  added  to 
these  that  made  him  St.  Paul. 

It  is  right  enough  that  we  should  now  recognise 
the  importance  of  his  natural  gifts  and  trace  out 
the  ways  in  which  Providence  was  shaping  his  life 
towards  its  true  aim  before  he  was  conscious  of  it. 
But  St.  Paul  himself  had  hardly  patience  for  such 
cool  reflections.  He  turned  away  with  strong  aver- 
sion from  his  pre-Christian  life  as  something  con- 
demned and  lost ;  and  he  delighted  to  attribute  all 
that  he  was  and  did  to  the  influence  of  Christ  alone. 
In  my  last  lecture  I  quoted  a  single  passage  to  show 
that  he  himself  recognised  that  his  natural  endow- 
ments had  been  bestowed  in  order  to  fit  him  for  the 
13 


182  THE    PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

peculiar  work  which  he  was  destined  to  accomplish 
in  the  world  ;  but  I  question  if  from  all  his  writings 
I  could  have  quoted  another  passage  to  the  same 
effect.  It  was  only  for  a  moment  that  he  allowed 
himself  to  stand  on  this  point  of  view ;  whereas  we 
could  quote  from  every  part  of  his  writings  such  say- 
ings as  these :  "  By  the  grace  of  God  I  am  what  I 
am  "  ;  "I  laboured  more  abundantly  than  they  all, 
yet  not  I,  but  the  grace  of  God  in  me";  "It  is  no 
more  I  that  live,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me." 

That  this  was  his  habitual  way  of  estimating  his 
own  achievements  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  his 
mode  of  thinking  and  speaking  of  certain  defects  in 
the  equipment  with  which  nature  had  supplied  him 
for  the  career  on  which  he  was  embarked.  Gifted  as 
he  was,  even  he  did  not  possess  all  gifts.  He  lacked 
one  or  two  of  those  which  might  have  been  thought 
most  essential  to  his  success. 

It  would  appear  that  he  lacked  the  rotund  voice 
and  copious  diction  of  the  orator;  for  his  critics 
were  able  to  allege  that,  whilst  his  written  style  was 
powerful,  his  spoken  style  was  contemptible.  Painters 
have  represented  him  as  a  kind  of  demi-god,  with 
the  stature  of  an  athlete  and  the  grace  of  an  Apollo. 
But  he  seems  to  have  been  diminutive  in  stature ; 
and  there  appears  to  be  evidence  to  prove  that 
there   was   that  in  his   appearance  which,   at   first 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    CHRISTIAN.  183 

sight,  rather  repelled  than  attracted  an  audience. 
He  felt  these  defects  keenly,  and  could  not  but  wish 
sometimes  that  they  were  removed.  But  his  habit- 
ual and  settled  feeling  about  them  was,  that  he 
ought  to  look  upon  them  as  sources  of  strength 
rather  than  as  weaknesses,  because  they  made  him 
rely  the  more  on  the  strength  of  Christ.  This  was 
an  unfailing  resource,  on  which  he  felt  that  he  could 
draw  without  limit.  And  so  he  gloried  in  his  in- 
firmities, that  the  power  of  Christ  might  rest  upon 
him.* 

It  might  be  said  that  it  was  only  the  enthusiasm 
of  Paul  which  made  him  attribute  to  Christ  that 
which  really  belonged  to  himself.  But  his  own  point 
of  view  is  the  just  one.  It  was  Christ  who  made 
him  ;  and,  if  we  are  to  understand  a  ministry  like 

*  The  most  charming  chapter  of  Adolphe  Monod's  Saint  Paul  is  dii  the 
subject  of  these  two  paragraphs.  It  is  difficult  to  quote  from  it,  because 
one  would  like  to  quote  it  all ;  but  I  allow  myself  the  pleasure  of  borrow- 
ing-these  golden  sentences  :  "  C'est  qu'en  dcpit  de  tant  de  promesses  faites 
a  la  foi,  nous  sommes  toujours  plus  on  moins  affaiblis  par  un  reste  de 
force  propre,  comme  nous  sommes  toujours  plus  on  moins  troubles  par  un 
reste  de  propre  justice,  que  les  plus  humbles  eux-mcmes  trainent  partout 
avec  eux.  Cette  malheureuse  force  propre,  cette  eloquence  propre,  cette 
science  propre,  cette  influence  propre,  forme  en  nous  comme  un  petit  sanc- 
tuaire  favori,  que  notre  orgueil  jaloux  tient  fermc  a  la  force  de  Dieu,  pour 
s'y  rcserver  un  dernier  refusre.  Mais  si  nous  pouvions  devenir  enfin 
faibles  tout  de  bnn  et  desesperer  absolument  de  nous-memes,  la  force 
de  Dieu,  se  repandant  dans  tout  notre  homme  interieur  et  s'  infiltrant 
jusque  dans  ses  plus  secrets  replis,  nous  'remplirait  jusqu'en  toute  pleni- 
tude de  Dieu  ;  par  ovi,  la  force  de  I'homme  etant  echangee  contre  la  force 
de  Dieu,  rien  ne  nous  serait  impossible,  parce  que  rien  n'est  impossible 
a  Dieu." 


184  THE  PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

his,  we  must  try  to  measure  the  influence  of  Christ 
upon  him,  or,  in  other  words,  investigate  the  ele- 
ments of  his  Christianity. 

I.  Paul  could  claim  that  even  in  his  pre-Christian 
days  he  had  lived  in  all  good  conscience  towards 
both  God  and  man.  Yet  this  profession  of  upright- 
ness does  not  prevent  him  from  confessing  else- 
where that  deep  down  in  his  consciousness  there  had 
been  a  mortal  struggle  between  the  principles  of 
good  and  evil,  in  which  the  good  was  far  from  always 
winning  the  victory:  "We  all,"  he  acknowledges, 
"  had  our  conversation  in  times  past  in  the  lusts  of 
our  flesh,  fulfilling  the  desires  of  the  flesh  and  of  the 
mind,  and  were  by  nature  the  children  of  wrath  even 
as  others."  In  the  seventh  chapter  of  Romans  he 
has  drawn  a  picture  of  this  struggle,  and  it  is  to  the 
very  life.  Theologians  have,  indeed,  disputed 
among  themselves  as  to  the  stage  of  experience 
there  referred  to — whether  it  is  the  state  of  an  un- 
converted or  of  a  converted  inan.  But  the  human 
heart  has  no  difficulty  in  interpreting  it.  The  more 
thoroughly  anyone  is  a  man,  the  more  easily  will  he 
understand  it;  and  especially  the  more  upright  and 
conscientious  anyone  is,  the  more  certainly  must  he 
have  experienced  what  is  described  in  words  like 
these,  "  That   which  I    do   I   allow   not,  for  what   I 


THE   PREACHER  AS  A    CHRISTIAN.  185 

would  that  do  I  not,  but  what  I  hate  that  do  I  "  ; 
"  For  the  good  that  I  would  I  do  not,  but  the  evil 
that  I  would  not  that  I  do  "  ;  "I  find,  then,  a  law 
that,  when  I  would  do  good,  evil  is  present  with  me. 
For  I  delight  in  the  law  of  God  after  the  inward 
man  ;  but  I  see  another  law  in  my  members  warring 
against  the  law  of  my  mind,  and  bringing  me  into 
captivity  to  the  law  of  sin  which  is  in  my  members. 
Oh  wretched  man  that  I  am  !  who  shall  deliver  me 
from  the  body  of  this  death  ?  "  Thus  Paul  had  been 
a  lost  man,  in  hopeless  bondage  to  sin. 

But  he  had  to  repent  of  his  own  righteousness  as 
well  as  of  his  sin.  He  had  inherited  the  passionate 
longing  of  the  Jewish  race  for  fellowship  with  God 
— the  longing  expressed  a  hundred  times  in  the 
poetry  of  his  fathers  in  words  like  these:  "  As  the 
hart  panteth  after  the  waterbrooks,  so  panteth  my 
soul  after  Thee,  O  God  "  ;  "  My  soul  thirsteth  for 
God,  for  the  living  God  ;  when  shall  I  come  and 
appear  before  God?"  He  had  been  taught  that 
the  great  prize  of  life  is  to  be  well-pleasing  to  God, 
and  he  had  learned  the  lesson  with  all  the  passion- 
ate earnestness  of  his  nature.  Yet  he  never  could 
attain  to  that  for  which  he  longed.  There  always 
seemed  to  be  a  cloud  on  the  Divine  face,  and  he 
was  kept  at  a  distance.  Luther  went  through  the 
very  same  experience.     His  was  also  a  passionately 


186  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

religious  nature,  and  he  strove  with  all  his  might  to 
get  into  the  sunshine  of  God's  face  ;  but  his  efforts 
were  entirely  baffled.  Wash  them  as  he  would,  his 
hands  were  never  clean. 

What  could  an  earnest  nature  do  in  such  circum- 
stances but  seek  to  bring  still  greater  sacrifices? 
Probably  this  was  the  source  of  Paul's  zeal  in  the 
work  of  the  persecutor.  He  was  vindicating  the 
honour  of  God  when  he  exterminated  the  enemies 
of  God.  The  work  must  have  gone  sorely  against 
the  grain  of  a  nature  as  sensitive  as  his,  especially 
when  he  saw  scenes,  like  the  death  of  Stephen,  in 
which  the  gentleness  and  heroism  of  his  victims 
shone  out  with  unearthly  beauty.  But  he  only  flung 
himself  more  passionately  into  his  task  ;  because, 
the  more  trying  it  was,  the  greater  was  the  merit  of 
doing  it,  and  the  more  certain  was  he  of  winning  at 
last  the  full  approval  of  God. 

This  portion  of  Paul's  career  seems  to  be  capable 
of  complete  vindication  on  the  ground  of  conscien- 
tiousness. Indeed,  in  reviewing  it,  he  stands  some- 
times on  this  point  of  view  himself,  and  says  that 
God  had  mercy  on  him  because  he  did  it  ignorantly 
in  unbelief.  But  oftener  he  thinks  of  it  with  over- 
whelming shame  and  remorse.  The  whole  course  of 
life  which  had  logically  led  up  to  work  so  inhuman 
in  its  details  and  so  directly  in  the  face  of  God's  pur- 


THE   PREACHER   ASA    CHRISTIAN.  187 

poses  was  demonstrated  by  the  issue  to  have  been 
utterly  ungodly.  His  thoughts  had  not  been  God's 
thoughts  nor  his  ways  God's  ways.  The  scenes  ot 
the  persecution,  when,  haling  men  and  women,  he- 
cast  them  into  prison  ;  the  hatred  and  fury  which  in 
those  days  had  raged  in  his  breast  ;  the  efforts  which 
he  had  put  forth  to  oppose  the  cause  of  Christ, 
which  it  was  his  firm  resolution  to  extinguish  to  its 
last  embers — these  memories  would  never  afterwards 
quit  his  mind.  They  kept  him  humble;  for  he  felt 
that  he  was  the  least  of  the  apostles,  who  was  not 
worthy  to  be  called  an  apostle,  because  he  had  per- 
secuted the  Church  of  God.  He  called  himself  the 
chief  of  sinners,  and  believed  that  God  had  in  his 
case  exhaustively  displayed  the  whole  wealth  of  His 
mercy  for  a  pattern  to  all  subsequent  generations. 

The  first  element  of  St.  Paul's  Christianity,  then, 
was  the  penitence  of  a  lost  man  and  a  great  sinner, 
who  owed  to  Christ  the  forgiveness  of  his  sins  and 
the  redemption  of  his  life  from  an  evil  career.  And 
he  believed  that  Christ  had  purchased  these  benefits 
for  him  by  the  sacrifice  of  His  own  life. 

2.  The  second  great  element  of  St.  Paul's  Chris- 
tianity was  his  Conversion,  which  set  a  gulf  between 
the  portion  of  his  life  which  preceded  and  the  por- 
tion which  followed  it.  It  was  the  chief  date  of  his 
life,  and  confronted  him  every  time  he  looked  back. 


188  f'lfE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

Its  influence  extended  to  every  part  of  his  experi- 
ence ;  but  perhaps  its  most  innportant  effect  was  to 
set  Christ  up  within  him  as  a  Hving  Person,  of 
whose  reaHty  he  was  absolutely  assured. 

Probably  Paul's  opposition  to  Christianity  was 
from  the  first  very  specially  opposition  to  Christ 
Himself.  When  he  struck  at  the  disciples,  he  was 
really  striking  at  the  Master  through  them.  It  is 
easy  to  conceive  what  an  affront  the  pretensions  of 
Jesus  must  have  been  felt  to  be  by  Paul.  Jesus  had 
been  a  man  of  about  his  own  age — a  young  man  ;  he 
had  sprung  from  the  lowest  of  the  people,  being  a 
villager  and  mechanic ;  he  had  never  sat  in  the 
schools  of  learning;  the  men  of  ability  and  author- 
ity had  had  no  hesitation  in  condemning  Him. 
That  such  a  one  should  be  esteemed  the  Messiah 
of  the  Jews  and  worshipped  as  if  He  were  Divine, 
raised  a  storm  of  indignation  in  the  heart  of  Paul. 

Probably  nothing  could  have  converted  him  ex- 
cept the  miraculous  occurrence  which  God  em- 
ployed. Christ  had  to  come  to  him  in  person  and 
in  a  visible  shape — in  the  shape  of  the  glorified  hu- 
manity which  He  wears  somewhere  in  that  empire 
of  God  which  we  call  Heaven.  Paul  knew  the  light 
in  which  he  was  enveloped  to  be  a  Divine  light ; 
the  sound  of  the  voice  calling  him  was  the  thunder 
which  from  of  old  had  been  recognised  by  the  race 


THE   PREACHER  AS  A    CHRISTIAN.  189 

to  which  he  belonged  as  the  voice  of  God  ;  he  was 
looking  straight  up  to  the  place  of  God  ;  and  in 
that  place  he  saw  Jesus,  whom  he  was  persecuting. 
Most  Divine  of  all,  however,  w^ere  the  sweetness, 
the  clemency  and  the  respect  of  the  words  in 
which  he  was  addressed.  This  Jesus,  against  whom 
he  was  raging,  came  to  him,  not  with  corresponding 
rage,  to  take  vengeance  and  destroy  him,  but  wnth 
winning  words  of 'ruth  and  with  the  call  to  a  high 
and  blessed  vocation.  It  was  this  which  broke 
the  heart  of  Paul  and  attached  him  to  Christ  for- 
ever. 

He  always  afterwards  believed  that  what  took 
place  on  this  occasion  was  what  I  have  said — that 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  descended  from  the  right  hand 
of  God  to  prove  to  him  who  He  was  and  to  claim 
him  as  His  servant  and  apostle — and  never  after- 
wards did  he  for  a  moment  doubt  that  the  man 
whom  his  fellow-countrymen  had  crucified,  and 
whom  he  himself  had  persecuted,  was  seated  on  the 
throne  of  heaven,  clothed  with  Divine  blessedness 
and  omnipotence. 

Of  course  others  have  doubted  this.  It  may  be 
said  that  what  Paul  saw  was  only  a  vision,  and  that 
therefore  his  new  life  was  founded  on  a  mistake.  I 
believe  his  own  account  to  be  the  correct  one  ;  but 
perhaps  we  need  not  dogmatig£^to<»«"  niuch  about 


190  THE   PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

what  he  saw ;  because  it  was  not  in  reahty  on  any 
theory  of  this  vision  that  his  faith  was  founded.  It 
was  not  because  he  saw  Christ  that  day  with  tiic 
bodily  eye,  or  believed  he  did  so,  that  he  became 
or  continued  a  Christian  ;  it  was  because,  trusting- 
Christ,  thus  revealed,  he  obtained  that  for  which  he 
had  all  his  life  been  longing:  he  was  no  longer 
banished  or  kept  at  a  distance,  but  brought  nigh  to 
God  ;  he  was  reconciled,  and  the  love  of  God  was 
shed  abroad  in  his  heart.  He  had  all  his  lifetime 
been  asking  in  despair,  "  What  must  I  do  to  be 
saved?  "  but  now  he  was  saved.  The  humiliating 
bondage  in  which  his  spiritual  nature  had  been  held 
was  dissolved,  and,  following  Christ,  he  advanced 
from  victory  to  victory. 

This  is  the  test  of  all  conversions  ;  it  is  the  best 
evidence  of  Christianity  ;  and  it  is  the  power  of 
preaching.  We  believe  in  Christ  not  only  because 
there  is  sufficient  historical  evidence  that  He  ex- 
isted eighteen  hundred  years  ago  and  did  such  acts 
as  proved  that  He  was  sent  from  God,  but  because 
He  proves  Himself  to  be  living  now  by  the  trans- 
formation which  He  brings  to  pass  in  those  who  put 
their  trust  in  Him.  We  are  certain  that  there  is  a 
Saviour,  because  He  has  saved  ourselves.  I  am 
happy  to  see  that  this  evidence  of  our  religion  is  at 
present  coming    again  to  the  front.     One  of  your 


THE  PREACHER   AS  A    CHRISTIAN.  191 

younger  scholars,  Dr.  Stearns  of  Bangor,  Maine,  has 
developed  it,  in  a  book  just  published,  with  great 
breadth  of  theological  knowledge  ;  and  a  former 
Yale  lecturer,  Dr.  Dale  of  Birmingham,  has  given  a 
telling  exposition  of  it  at  the  same  time.*  This  is 
the  vital  force  of  preaching.  We  are  witnesses  to 
Christ — not  merely  to  a  Christ  who  lived  long  ago 
and  did  wonders,  but  to  a  Christ  who  is  alive  now 
and  is  still  doing  mcral  miracles.  And  the  virtue 
of  any  man's  testimony  lies  in  his  being  able  to 
say  that  he  has  himself  seen  the  Christ  whom  he 
preaches  to  others,  and  himself  experienced  the 
power  which  he  recommends  others  to  seek. 

3.  After  his  conversion  the  whole  life  of  St.  Paul 
was  comprehended  in  one  word  ;  and  this  word 
was  Christ.  There  has  often  in  modern  times  been 
a  Christianity  which  has  contained  very  little  of 
Christ.  Mr.  Sage,  of  Resolis,  one  of  whose  quaint  say- 
ings I  quoted  in  my  last  lecture,  has  solemnly  left  it 
on  record  that,  when  he  was  a  student  at  Aberdeen, 
the  Professor  of  Divinity,  who  was  also  Principal  of 
the  University,  in  a  three  years'  course  of  lectures 
on  the  principles  of  the  Christian  religion,  never 
once  mentioned  the  name  of  Christ  ;  and  in  those 
times    sermons    were   perfectly   common   in   which 

*  Stearns,  The  Evidence  0/  Christian  Expe?-ience  ;  Dale,    The  Living 
Christ  and  the  Four  Gospels. 


192  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

there  was  not  the  slightest  allusion  to  the  Saviour. 
In  our  day  this  is  entirely  changed.  Yet  we  are 
also  surrounded  with  a  Christianity  which  is  ex- 
tremely vague.  Almost  every  sentiment  in  which 
there  is  anything  devout  or  humane  receives  the 
name  of  Christian  ;  and  the  question  which  many 
are  asking  is  how  little  it  is  necessary  for  one  who 
claims  the  Christian  name  to  believe  and  profess. 
Even  this  question  may,  indeed,  in  some  cases  indi- 
cate a  state  of  mind  far  from  unpromising,  which 
requires  the  utmost  pastoral  sympathy  and  skill  ; 
but,  if  we  wish  to  know  what  Christianity  is  in  its 
power,  we  must  not  live  in  this  unhealthy  region, 
but  find  a  Christianity  in  which  the  distinctively 
Christian  element  is  not  a  minimum  but  a  maxi- 
mum. Such  was  St.  Paul's  Christianity.  Its  most 
prominent  peculiarity  was  that  there  was  so  much 
of  Christ  in  it.  He  expressed  this  in  the  character- 
istic saying,  "To  me  to  live  is  Christ, "  which  was 
only  a  Greek  way  of  saying.  To  me  life  is  Christ ; 
and,  from  whatever  side  we  look  at  his  life,  we  see 
that  this  was  true. 

Christ  had  obtained,  and  He  retained,  an  exten- 
sive hold  on  his  emotional  nature.     St.  Paul's  was  a 
,  large  heart,  and  it  was  all  Christ's.     We  are   shy  of 
speaking  of  our  personal  feeling  towards  the  Saviour ; 
and  we  probably  feel  pretty  often  that  the  conven- 


THE   PREACHER  AS  A    CHRISTIAN.  193 

tional  terms  of  affection  for  Him,  which  are  made 
use  of,  for  example,  in  the  hymns  of  the  Church, 
transcend  our  actual  experience.  St.  Paul,  on  the 
contrary,  has  no  hesitation  in  employing  about 
Christ  the  language  commonly  used  to  describe  the 
most  absorbing  passion,  when  love  is  filling  life 
with  a  sweet  delirum  and  making  everything  easy 
which  has  to  be  done  for  the  sake  of  its  object. 
St.  Paul's  achievements  and  self-denials  were  almost 
more  than  human;  but  his  own  explanation  of 
them  was  simple:  "The  love  of  Christ  constraineth 
us."  He  had  to  forego  the  prizes  which  to  other 
men  make  life  worth  living  ;  but  what  did  he  care  ? 
"  I  count  them  but  dung,"  he  says,  "that  I  may 
win  Christ."  If  only  he  retained  one  thing,  he  was 
willing  to  let  all  others  go  :  "  Who  shall  separate 
us  from  the  love  of  Christ  ?  Shall  tribulation  or 
distress  or  persecution,  or  famine  or  nakedness,  or 
peril  or  sword?  Nay,  in  all  these  things  we  are 
more  than  conquerors  through  Him  that  loved  us. 
For  I  am  persuaded  that  neither  death  nor  life,  nor 
angels  nor  principalities  nor  powers,  nor  things 
present  nor  things  to  come,  nor  height  nor  depth, 
nor  any  other  creature  shall  be  able  to  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord."  These  sound  like  the  fervours  of  first  love  ; 
but  they  are  the  words  of  a  man  at   the  height  of 


194  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

his  powers.  And  in  old  age  he  was  still  the  same: 
still  to  him  Christ  was  the  star  of  life,  and  the  hope 
of  being  with  Him  had  annihilated  the  terrors  of 
death  :  "  I  am  in  a  strait  betwixt  two,  having  a 
desire  to  depart  and  to  be  with  Christ,  which  is  far 
better." 

But  Christ  was  enthroned  in  St.  Paul's  intellect 
no  less  than  in  his  heart.  It  was  an  intellect  vast 
in  its  compass  and  restless  in  its  movements;  but 
all  its  movements  circled  round  Christ,  and  its  most 
powerful  efforts  were  put  forth  to  reach  the  full 
height  of  His  glory.  Everyone  acquainted  with  his 
writings  knows  how  full  of  Christ  they  are.  What 
is  technically  called  his  Christology  is  both  splendid 
and  profound ;  but,  indeed,  his  whole  thinking  is 
Christological ;  he  saw  the  whole  universe  in  Christ. 

Perhaps,  however,  we  see  even  more  suggestively 
how  his  whole  mind  was  occupied  with  this  subject 
by  observing  the  way  in  which  the  mere  incidental 
mention  of  the  name  of  Christ  sends  him  off  into 
the  most  sublime  statements  regarding  Him.  For 
example,  when  he  is  speaking  to  husbands  about 
loving  their  wives,  the  thought  strikes  him  that  this 
love  is  like  that  of  Christ  to  His  people;  and  he 
breaks  forth:  "Husbands,  love  your  wives,  even  as 
Christ  also  loved  the  Church  and  gave  Himself  for 
it,  that  He  might  sanctify  and  cleanse  it  with   the 


THE   PREACHER   AS  A    CHRISTIAN.  195 

washing  of  water  by  the  word,  that  He  might 
present  it  to  Himself  a  glorious  Church,  not  having 
spot  or  wrinkle  or  any  such  thing."  In  like  manner, 
happening  to  be  recommending  generosity,  he 
thinks  of  the  generosity  of  Christ,  and  away  he 
breaks  into  an  incomparable  description  of  His  de- 
scent from  the  throne  of  the  Highest  to  the  death 
of  the  cross:  "  Let  this  mind  be  in  you  which  was 
also  in  Christ  Jesus,  who,  being  in  the  form  of  God, 
thought  it  not  robbery  to  be  equal  with  God,"  and 
so  on  ;  and,  not  content  with  following  Him  down, 
in  accordance  with  the  thought  with  which  he 
started,  he  pursues  the  subject  under  the  impulse 
of  sheer  love,  following  Him  up  to  the  highest 
heaven  :  "  Wherefore  God  also  hath  highly  exalted 
Him  and  given  Him  a  name  which  is  above  every 
name,  that  at  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should 
bow,  of  things  in  heaven  and  things  in  earth  and 
things  under  the  earth,  and  that  every  tongue  should 
confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord  to  the  glory  of 
God  the  Father."  When  is  it  that  the  mind  thus 
starts  off  into  a  subject  at  any  chance  hint  or  sug- 
gestion, pouring  out  the  most  astonishing  ideas  in 
the  most  felicitous  language?  It  is  only  when  it 
is  possessed  with  it,  and  when  its  ideas  are  so  hot 
and  molten,  that  they  are  ready  to  avail  themselves 
of  any  outlet. 


196  THE   PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

What  may  be  called  the  inner  or  spiritual  life  of 
St.  Paul  may  most  of  all  be  said  to  have  been  all 
Christ.  His  own  theory  of  this  innermost  life  is 
that  it  is  a  kind  of  living  over  again  of  the  life  of 
Christ:  we  die  with  Him  to  sin  ;  we  are  buried  with 
Him  in  baptism  ;  as  He  rose,  so  we  rise  again  to 
newness  of  life  ;  He  ascended  to  sit  on  the  throne 
of  the  Father,  and  we  are  seated  with  Him  in 
heavenly  places.  He  is  the  very  soil  in  which  this 
life  grows,  and  the  atmosphere  which  it  breathes;  a 
Christian  is  "  a  man  in  Christ,"  and  all  the  functions 
of  his  interior  and  even  of  his  exterior  life  are  per- 
formed in  this  element :  he  speaks  in  Christ,  he 
marries  in  Christ,  he  dies  in  Christ,  and  in  the  res- 
urrection he  will  rise  in  Christ. 

This  is  what  would  be  called  the  mysticism  of  St. 
Paul  ;  and  doctrines  resembling  this  have  sometimes 
been  associated  in  religion  with  fantastic  specula- 
tion and  unpractical  dreaming.  In  St.  Paul,  how- 
ever, mysticism  had  no  such  results.  If  there  was 
any  part  of  his  life  on  which  the  influence  of  Christ 
was  more  conspicuous  than  another,  it  was  the  prac- 
tical part.  To  him  any  pretended  connection  or  in- 
tercourse with  Christ  in  secret  had  no  meaning  un- 
less its  outcome  was  visible  in  a  Christlike  life — "  If 
any  man  have  not  the  spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  none  of 
His." 


THE   PREACHER   AS  A    CHRISTIAN.  197 

To  his  own  person  he  applied  this  principle  in 
the  most  rigorous  manner.  Christ,  he  is  fond  of 
saying,  lives  in  him ;  he  almost  speaks  as  if  in  his 
flesh  the  Son  of  God  had  experienced  a  second  in- 
carnation ;  but  he  relentlessly  draws  the  practical 
conclusion.  When  Christ  lived  in  His  own  earthly 
tabernacle,  what  did  He  live  for  ?  It  was  for  the 
salvation  of  men  ;  He  went  about  continually  doing 
good  ;  He  lived  to  seek  and  save  the  lost.  If  so, 
then,  living  in  St.  Paul,  He  must  have  the  same  pur- 
pose— to  make  use  of  his  powers  of  mind  and  body 
for  the  salvation  of  the  world.  In  this  way  Christ 
was  really  still  carrying  on  the  work  which  had 
been  interrupted  by  His  death.  St.  Paul  dares  to 
say  that  he  is  filling  up  that  which  was  lacking  of 
Christ's  sufferings  for  the  sake  of  His  body,  the 
Church.  He  says  that  the  heart  of  Christ  is  yearn- 
ing after  men  in  his  heart  ;  that  the  mind  of  Christ 
is  scheming  for  the  kingdom  of  God  in  his  brain  ;  he 
even  compares  the  marks  of  persecution  on  his  body 
to  the  wounds  of  Christ. 

There  is  nowhere  else  on  record — at  least  there 
was  not  till  St.  Paul  had  taught  it  to  the  Christian 
world — such  a  merging  of  one  life  in  another. 
And  it  is  all  the  more  remarkable  when  it  is  con- 
sidered how  big  and  strong  a  nature  St.  Paul's  was. 

If  any  other  man  might  have  coveted  an  original 
14 


I!)  8  THE   PREACHER   A  AW   HIS  MODELS. 

and  independent  life,  surely  he  was  entitled  to  be 
something  in  the  world  ;  but  he  had  utterly  sunk 
himself  into  the  echo  and  the  organ  of  Another.* 

Gentlemen,  I  have  taken  up  nearly  the  whole  of 
the  lecture  with  this  minute  analysis  of  St.  Paul's 
Christianity  for  two  reasons. 

I  have  done  so,  first,  because  I  wish  to  create  in 
your  minds  a  genial  estimate  of  the  man  himself 
whom  I  am  setting  up  in  this  course  of  lectures  as 
the  model  for  preachers.  It  is  not  uncommon  to 
speak  as  if  the  earliest  apostles  had  been  formed  by 
their  association  with  Jesus,  and,  strong  only  in  their 
affection  for  Him,  had  gone  forth  to  tell  the  world 
the  simple  story  of  His  life  and  death  ;  but  St.  Paul, 
being  a  man  of  a  colder  nature  and  of  strong  intel- 
lectual proclivities,  drew  Christianity  away  from 
the  person  of  Jesus  and  transmuted   it   into  a  hard 


*  "  I  feel  most  strongly  that  man,  in  all  that  he  does  or  can  do  which  is 
beautiful,  great  or  good,  is  but  the  organ  and  the  vehicle  of  something  or 
some  oue  higher  tlian  himself.  This  feeling  is  religion.  The  religious 
man  take-;  part  with  a  tremor  of  sacred  joy  in  those  phenomena  of  which 
lie  is  the  intermediary  but  not  the  source,  of  which  he  is  the  scene  but 
not  the  author,  or  rather  the  poet.  He  lends  them  voice,  hand,  will  and 
help,  but  he  is  respectfully  careful  to  efface  himself,  that  he  may  alter  as 
little  as  possible  the  higher  work  of  the  Genius  who  is  making  a  momentary 
use  of  him.  A  pure  emotion  depr'ves  him  of  personality  and  annihilates 
the  self  in  him.  Self  must  perforce  disappear  when  it  is  the  Holy  Spirit 
■who  speaks,  when  it  is  God  who  acts.  Thi^  is  the  mood  in  which  the 
prophet  hears  the  call,  the  young  mother  feels  the  movement  of  the  child 
within,  the  preacher  watches  the  tears  of  his  audience.  So  long  as  we 
are  conscious  of  self,  we  are  limited,  selfish,  held  in  bondage." — Amiel. 


THE   PREACHER    AS  A    CHRISTL-IN.  199 

intellectual  system.  I  think  I  have  proved  that 
this  is  a  totally  mistaken  impression,  which  does 
gross  injustice  to  the  great  Apostle.  None  of  the 
apostles,  not  even  St.  John,  was  more  filled  with  the 
glow  of  personal  attachment  to  Christ.  He  had  a 
larger  nature  than  any  of  them,  but  it  was  pene- 
trated with  this  passion  through  and  through.  Be- 
ing of  the  intellectual  type,  he  could  not  help  think- 
ing out  Christianity:  but  Christ  entered  into  every 
thought  he  had  about  it. 

The  other  reason  why  I  have  attempted  to  an- 
alyze so  fully  to-day  the  Christian  experience  of  St. 
Paul  is  because  I  believe  that  the  great  motive  of 
the  ministry  lies  here — the  very  pulse  of  the  ma- 
chine.* 

There  are  many  motives  which  may  go  to  con- 
stitute a  powerful  ministry  and  enable  us  to  rejoice 
in  our  vocation.  I  have  dealt  with  some  of  them 
already  in  this  course  of  lectures.  There  is,  for  ex- 
ample, the  one  with  which  I  dealt  in  my  last  lecture, 
that  the  ministry  gives  satisfying  and  exhilarating 
employment  to  all  the  powers  of  the  mind.  There 
is,  again,  that  which  I  mentioned  in  an  earlier  lect- 
ure, that  ours  is  a  patriotic   service  :  we   are    doing 


*  As  enthusiasm  for  Christ  is  the  soul  of  preaching  as  far  as  the 
preacher  is  concerned,  so  in  a  spiritual  congregation  there  will  always  be 
found  a  jealous  desire  for  this  element  in  what  they  hear. 


iiOO  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

the  very  best  for  our  country  when  we  are  perme- 
ating its  Hfe  with  the  spirit  of  true  religion.  An  as- 
pect of  the  ministry  which  attracts  many  minds  at 
present  is  that  it  is  a  service  to  humanity ;  the 
heart  and  conscience  of  the  age  are  stirred  by  the 
misery  of  the  poor,  and  this  is  the  most  obvious 
and  effective  mode  of  rescue.  These  are  inspiring 
motives ;  and  others  might  be  mentioned.  But 
far  more  important  than  them  all  is  a  strong  per- 
sonal attachment  to  the  Saviour.  This  is  the  mo- 
tive of  the  ministry  which  goes  deepest  and  wears 
longest. 

It  may  have  many  roots.  It  may  be  rooted  in 
impressive  convictions  about  the  person  of  the  Sav- 
iour and  enthusiastic  admiration  of  His  character. 
It  may  spring  from  a  profound  sense  of  the  lost 
condition  from  which  He  has  rescued  ourselves  and 
of  the  destiny  to  which  He  has  raised  us.  It  may 
be  due  most  of  all  to  the  impression  made  on  our 
mind  and  heart  by  the  sacrifice  at  the  cost  of  which 
Jesus  procured  salvation  for  us.  And  here  the 
depth  or  shallowness  of  our  theology  will  be  sure 
to  tell.  If  our  views  are  superficial  either  of  the 
difference  which  salvation  has  made  to  ourselves  or 
of  what  Christ  did  to  constitute  Himself  the  Sav- 
iour, the  likelihood  is  that  we  shall  love  little.  It 
is  the  man  who  knows  that  he  has  been  forgiven 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    CHRISTIAN.  201 

much  and  saved  at  a  great  cost,  who  loves  much. 
And  the  amount  of  love  is  the  measure  of  sacrifice. 
In  all  ages  this  has  been  the  secret  of  devoted 
lives.  It  has  made  the  great  preachers — St.  Augus- 
tine and  St.  Bernard,  Luther  and  Wesley,  Samuel 
Rutherford  and  McCheyne.  It  has  made  those 
too  who  have  not  been  great  in  the  eyes  of  men, 
but  by  their  self-denying  lives  have  made  the  king- 
dom of  God  to  come.  In  one  of  his  sonnets  Mat- 
thew Arnold  tells  of  meeting  with  a  minister,  "  ill 
and  o'erworked,"  on  a  broiling  August  day  in  the 
East  End  of  London,  and  asking  him  how  he  fared 
in  that  scene  of  sin  and  sorrow.  "  Bravely,"  was 
the  answer,  "  for  I  of  late  have  been  much  cheered 
with  thought  of  Christ."  It  is  said  to  have  been  an 
actual  incident.*  At  all  events,  it  is  the  explanation 
of  thousands  of  heroic  lives  passed  in  similar  des- 
perate situations.  At  present  the  adherents  of  a 
humanitarian  philanthropism  are  loud  in  proclaim- 
ing the  woes  of  the  world,  as  if  they  had  been  the 
first  to  discover  them,  and  propounding  schemes  for 
their  amelioration  ;  but  their  methods  have  all  been 
anticipated  by  the  humble  followers  of  Jesus  ;  and 
nine-tenths  of  the  genuine  philanthropic  work  of 
the  world  are  being  done  by  men  and  women  who 

*See  an  article  by  the  Rev.  John  Kennedy,  D.D.,  in  The  Evangelical 
Magazine,  April,  i8gi. 


202  THE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

make  no  noise,  but  who  cannot  help  workhig  for  the 
ends  of  Jesus,  because  His  love  is  burning  in  their 
very  bones,  and  because  the  life  of  Christ  in  them 
cannot  help  manifesting  itself  after  its  kind.  Down 
the  Christian  centuries  there  has  come  floating  a  kind 
of  hymn  :  the  words  are  said  to  be  by  St.  Patrick : 
the  sentiment  may  well  be  called  the  music  to  which 
the  true  Church  militant  has  always  marched: — 

Christ  with  me,  Christ  before  be, 

Christ  behind  me,  Christ  within  me, 

Christ  beneath  me,  Christ  above  me, 

Christ  at  my  right,  Christ  at  my  left, 

Christ  in  the  fort, 

Christ  in  the  chariot  seat, 

Christ  in  the  poop, 

Christ  in  the  heart  of  every  man  who  thinks  of  me, 

Christ  in  the  mouth  of  every  man  who  speai<s  to  me, 

Christ  in  every  eye  that  sees  me, 

Christ  in  every  ear  that  hears  me.* 

*  Here  may  be  intruduced  a  few  notes  which  are  to  me  of  inestimable 
value.  The  happiness  of  my  visit  to  the  StUes,  which  was  great.'was 
oversliadowed  at  the  close  by  the  news  of  the  death  of  the  best  friend  I 
had  on  tarth — the  Rev.  Robert  W.  Barbour,  of  Bonskeid.  None  who 
knew  him  will  need  to  have  it  explained  why  I  should  think  of  him  af 
this  point  ;  because,  while  he  had  drunk  deeply  of  the  spirit  of  the  time 
and  was  possessed  of  a  rare  love  for  men,  the  deepest  source  of  the  sacred 
extravagance  with  which  he  lavished  himself  and  his  many  talents  on  every 
good  cause  was  nnthing  else  than  the  passion  for  Christ  which  I  am  try- 
ing in  this  lecture  to  illustrate.  He  took  a  warm  interest  in  this  course 
of  lectures,  and  sent  me  the  following  Aphorisms  on  Preaching,  to  be 
used  as  I  might  think  fit.  I  reproduce  them  entire,  as  they  came  from  him. 
Perhaps  they  were  the  very  last  literary  work  he  did  : — 

The  Book  and  the  Library.  The  preacher  must  be  master  of  m.any 
books,  but  servant  <  if  one. 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    CHRISTIAN.  203 

Closet  and  Desk.  Study  as  though  thou  mightest  preach  for  fifty 
years  ;  pray  as  though  thou  mightest  preach  for  five. 

Divine  and  Human.  Speak  as  though  the  mouth  were  God's  ;  but 
let  the  voice  be  a  man's. 

First  and  Second  Aims.  All  gifts  (presence,  voice,  gesture,  culture, 
style,  and  so  on)  may  be  wings,  if  kept  behind  one's  back  ;  the  mo- 
ment the}'  are  seen  they  become  dead  weights. 

Two  strings  to  one's  bow  will  do  with  any  shafts  but  the  arrows  of  the 
King.  Letters,  the  press,  the  lyre,  the  porch,  must  stand  in  the  back- 
ground behind  "  this  one  thing." 

Think  less  and  less  of  everything  else,  and  more  and  more  of  thy  mes- 
sage. 

Aims  and  Xo  Aims.  Aim  at  something,  you  will  hit  it ;  also  draw 
your  bow  at  a  venture. 

"  Make  full p70o/  of  thy  ministry.''''  Try  every  method — writing, 
reading,  committing,  extending,  extemporising.  Imitate  every  man,  but 
mimic  none.     Nothing  makes  a  preacher  like  preaching. 

Whence  comes  it  that  my  nature  is  subdued 
To  that  it  works  in,  like  the  dyer's  hand. 

Pulpit  Form.  Respect  your  hearers.  Do  not  gird  at  them  ;  angle  for 
them— and  agonize.  Address  yourself  to  one  at  a  time — first  to  the  man 
in  the  pulpit.  He  who  has  hit  himself  first  will  not  miss  others.  He 
who  trembles  at  the  word  of  the  Lord,  men  will  tremble  at  his  word. 
(Borrowed)  A  preacher  must  either  be  afraid  of  his  audience  or  his  audi- 
ence of  him. 

Janua  Domini.     Always  enter  the  pulpit  by  the  Door  (John  x.  7). 

Contents  attd  Omissions.  Put  everything  you  can  into  every  address. 
Omit  everything  you  can  from  every  address. 

"■Faith  coTneth  by  hearing.''''  Therefore,  to  begin  with,  be  audible. 
The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  commences  thus  :  "  He  opened  His  mouth" 
(Matt.  v.  2). 

Time  and  Eternity.  Speak  to  men's  fleeting  hopes  and  passing  in- 
terests ;  speak  also  to  their  grey  hairs  and  to  their  midnight  hours. 

Ultimata.  Desire  to  prophesy  (i  Cor.  xiv.  i)  ;  covet  to  prophesy  (i"3. 
39)  ;  do  not  preach  if  thou  darest  be  silent  (i  Cor.  ix.  16). 


LECTURE  VIII. 
THE  PREACHER  AS  AN  APOSTLE 


LECTURE  VIII. 

THE  PREACHER  AS  AN  APOSTLE. 

GENTLEMEN,  in  the  two  last  lectures  we  have 
investigated  two  of  the  principal  sources — per- 
haps I  might  say  the  two  principal  sources — of  a 
minister's  power — his  manhood  and  his  Christianity. 
These  may  be  called  the  two  natural  springs  out  of 
which  work  for  men  and  God  proceeds.  Out  of  these 
it  comes  as  a  direct  necessity  of  nature.  If  anyone 
is  much  of  a  man — if  there  be  in  him  much  fire  and 
force,  much  energy  of  conviction — it  will  be  impos- 
sible for  him  to  pass  through  so  great  an  experience 
as  the  reception  of  Christianity  without  making  it 
known  ;  and,  if  he  be  much  of  a  Christian — if  there 
be  in  him  much  of  the  spirit  of  Christ,  which  is  the 
spirit  of  self-sacrifice  and  benevolence — it  will  be 
impossible  for  him  to  refrain  from  approaching  men 
in  their  sin  and  misery  and  endeavouring  to  com- 
municate to  them  the  secret  of  blessedness.  He 
will  make  but  a  poor  minister  who  would  not  be  an 
earnest  worker  for  God  and  man,  even  if  he  were 
not  a  minister. 

These  impulses  were  conspicuously  strong  in  St. 


208  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

Paul.  Yet  there  was  also  another  source  from  which 
he  drew  the  motives  of  his  ministry.  This  was  the 
fact  that  God  had  appointed  him  to  the  office  of  an 
apostle  and  allotted  him  a  specific  sphere  of  activity 
as  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles. 

The  other  two  sources  of  motive  are,  as  I  have 
said,  natural ;  this  one,  on  the  contrary,  is  official. 
This  may  raise  a  prejudice  against  it.  So  many  and 
such  grave  mistakes  have  been  made  through  re- 
garding official  appointment  as  the  only  warrant  for 
Christian  work,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  antecedent 
qualifications  of  a  genuine  and  sympathetic  man- 
hood and  a  deep  personal  Christianity,  without 
which  it  is  nothing,  that  there  is  a  disposition  to 
ignore  this  kind  of  motive  altogether.  But  St.  Paul 
acknowledges  it.  Although  he  was  always,  no  doubt, 
far  more  of  a  man  and  a  Christian  than  an  official, 
yet,  in  reply  to  opposition,  he  insists  with  great 
vehemence  on  his  apostolic  rank ;  and  evidently  he 
felt  that  this  imposed  on  him  additional  obligations 
to  be  earnest  and  faithful  in  the  work  to  which  his 
manly  and  Christian  instincts  prompted  him. 

It  is,  indeed,  of  great  consequence  to  anyone  who 
has  become  a  Christian,  and  who  begins  to  feel  stir- 
ring in  his  breast  those  impulses  to  serve  God  and 
bless  the  world  which  are   native   to   the  Christian 


THE  PREACHER  AS  AN  APOSTLE.  209 

spirit,  to  obtain  a  definite  sphere  to  fill  and  a  definite 
work  to  do.  Otherwise  these  God-inspired  impulses, 
expressing  themselves  in  mere  words  and  sentiments, 
gradually  decay  through  want  of  exercise,  or  they 
are  dispersed  over  so  many  objects  that  nothing  is 
done.  But,  when  a  special  task  is  obtained,  the  force 
of  these  sentiments  is  concentrated  upon  it  and 
transmuted  into  actual  work.  The  Christian  man 
says :  Here  is  my  own  task ;  if  I  do  not  accomplish 
it,  no  one  else  can  ;  this  is  my  corner  in  the  great 
labour-field,  which  I,  and  no  one  else,  have  to  make 
fruitful  and  beautiful ;  I  shall  be  answerable  to  the 
Judge  of  all  at  the  last  for  the  manner  in  which  the 
work  assigned  to  me  is  done. 

Such  sentiments  had  a  strong  hold  of  the  mind 
of  St.  Paul.  One  of  his  commonest  ways  of  thinking 
of  his  office  was  as  a  stewardship,  which  he  was  ad- 
ministering, and  for  which  by-and-by  he  would  have 
to  render  a  reckoning.  "And,"  says  he,  "it  is  re- 
quired ill  stewards  that  a  man  be  found  faithful."* 
Similarly,  he  thought  of  himself  as  a  workman  with 

*  An  indication  of  the  intensity  with  which  St.  Paul's  mind  worked 
upon  the  subject  of  the  ministry  is  to  be  found  in  the  number  and  va?  iety 
of  his  metaphors  for  it.  The  fallowing  are  those  which  I  have  noted, 
but  there  may  be  more — nurse  (i  Thess.  ii.  7),  father  (i  Cor.  iv.  15),  gar- 
dener (i  Cor.  iii.  6),  labourer  (i  Cor.  iii.  9),  builder  (i  Cor.  iii.  10).  servant 
(i  Cor.  iv.  i),  bondman  (2  Tim.  ii.  24).  steward  (i  Cor.  iv.  i),  ambassador 
(Eph.  vi.  20),  soldier  (i  Tim.  vi.  12),  herald  (i  Tim.  ii.  7),  shepherd 
(Acts  XX.  28),  workman  (2  Tim.  ii.  15),  athlete  (i  Tim.  iv.  7),  vessel 
(2  Tim.  ii.  21). 


210  'J'lII'-    PKEACIIER   AND    HIS  MODELS. 

a  certain  portion  of  a  temple  to  build  ;  but  the  great 
Taskmaster  was  coming  round  in  the  evening  to  in- 
spect the  work — ay,  and  even  to  test  it  with  fire  ; 
and,  when  that  testing-time  came,  he  desired  to  be 
a  workman  not  needing  to  be  ashamed.  All  the 
work  of  his  apostleship  appeared  to  him  a  curricu- 
lum which  he  had  to  cover  before  he  could  win  the 
prize  of  the  Divine  approval.  This  is  his  favourite 
figure  of  speech,  and  he  applies  it  in  many  direc- 
tions. 

For  example,  the  athlete  in  the  racecourse  has  to 
keep  himself  in  training  and  to  put  every  muscle  on 
the  stretch.  So  St.  Paul  felt  the  obligation  to  put 
every  power  he  possessed  into  his  work.  "  Give 
thyself  wholly  to  them,"  he  says  to  a  young  fellow- 
labourer  about  his  duties  ;  and  what  he  preached 
he  practised.  "  Stir  up  the  grace  of  God  that  is  in 
thee,"  he  says  to  the  same  friend  again;  and  he 
called  on  his  own  nature  continually  for  the  utmost 
exertion  of  its  powers.  He  was  always  growing;  but 
the  increment  of  his  faculty  and  influence  went  all 
to  the  same  object. 

An  athlete  in  the  games  naturally  laid  aside  every 
weight,  divesting  himself  of  everything  which  might 
impede  his  running  and  rob  him  of  the  prize.  He 
dared  not  glance  aside  at  any  object  which  would 
take  his   eye   off  the   goal.     So  St.  Paul   sacrificed 


THR   PREACHER   AS  AN  APOSTLE.  211 

everything  for  the  Gospel's  sake  ;  he  had  but  one 
end  and  no  by-ends.  He  was  often,  indeed,  accused 
of  aiming  at  some  end  of  his  own.  With  especial 
persistency  he  was  accused  of  avarice.  It  is  very 
ludicrous  now  to  think  of  this  great  man  having 
been  supposed  capable  of  so  mean  a  vice.  But  his 
motives  were  too  high  and  pure  to  be  intelligible  to 
his  accusers,  and  they  naturally  attributed  to  him 
the  motive  which  was  the  strongest  of  which  they 
were  conscious  themselves.  But  they  only  brought 
out  the  true  greatness  of  the  man.  He  believed  in 
the  right  of  preachers  of  the  Gospel  to  live  by  the 
Gospel,  and  he  looked  forward  to  the  general  recog- 
nition of  this  as  soon  as  Christianity  had  obtained 
a  footing  in  the  world.  But  he  himself  lived  above 
all  such  claims.  He  accepted  support  from  his  con- 
verts, indeed,  and  thanked  God  for  it,  when  he  had 
good  reason  to  think  that  his  motives  were  under- 
stood. But,  where  they  were  suspected  or  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Gospel  seemed  to  be  in  any  degree 
endangered  by  his  acceptance  of  money,  he  would 
not  take  a  cent,  but  would  rather  sit  up  half  the 
night  and  work  his  fingers  to  the  bone  to  earn  his 
livelihood.  There  is  no  sublimer  scene  in  history 
than  the  great  Apostle,  who  was  bearing  the  weight 
of  Christianity  on  his  shoulders  and  carrying  the 
future   of  the  world  beneath  his  robe,  toiling  with 


212  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

his  hands  for  his  living  by  the  side  of  Aquila  and 
Priscilla,  in  order  that  he  might  keep  Christianity 
from  being  tarnished  with  the  faintest  suspicion  of 
mercenary  motives. 

Gentlemen,  among  the  many  attractions  of  our 
calling  on  which  I  should  like  to  congratulate  you 
this  is  not  the  least,  that  it  provides  a  definite  sphere 
for  the  exercise  of  the  benevolent  impulses  which 
you  may  feel  as  men  and  as  Christians  and,  by  ex- 
ercising, develops  them.  These  impulses  may  be 
the  strongest  and  most  sacred  in  our  nature.  But 
in  other  occupations,  in  the  excitement  and  compe- 
tition of  life,  they  are  in  great  danger  of  being  slowly 
extinguished.  In  our  calling,  on  the  contrary,  they 
receive  constant  opportunities  of  nurture  and  devel- 
opment. Their  healthy  and  spontaneous  activity 
is  the  soul  of  ministerial  work  ;  and  this  is  stim- 
ulated by  the  sense  of  responsibility  to  fill  the  sphere 
allotted  to  us  and  exhaust  its  possibilities. 

But,  besides  the  sense  of  duty,  there  is  a  stimulus 
of  a  still  more  affecting  kind  which  comes  to  a  man 
when  he  is  set  over  a  congregation  of  his  own.  When 
I  first  was  settled  in  a  church,  I  discovered  a  thing 
of  which  nobody  had  told  me  and  which  I  had  not 
anticipated,  but  which  proved  a  tremendous  aid  in 
doing  the  work  of  the  ministry.  I  fell  in  love  with 
my  congregation.     I  do  not  know  how  otherwise  to 


THE   PREACHER   AS  AN  APOSTLE.  213 

express  it.  It  was  as  genuine  a  blossom  of  the  heart 
as  any  which  I  have  evei  experienced.  It  made  it 
easy  to  do  anything  for  my  people  ;  it  made  it  a  per- 
fect joy  to  look  them  in  the  face  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing. I  do  not  know  if  this  is  a  universal  experience  ; 
but  I  should  think  it  is  common.  For  my  part,  I 
like  to  meet  a  man  who  thinks  his  own  congregation, 
however  small  it  may  be,  the  most  important  one  in 
the  Church  and  is  rather  inclined  to  bore  you  with 
its  details.  When  a  man  thus  falls  in  love  with  his 
people,  the  probability  is  that  something  of  the  same 
kind  happens  to  them  likewise.  Just  as  a  wife  prefers 
her  own  husband  to  every  other  man,  though  surely 
she  does  not  necessarily  suppose  him  to  be  the  most 
brilliant  specimen  in  existence,  so  a  congregation 
will  generally  be  found  to  prefer  their  own  minister, 
if  he  is  a  genuine  man,  to  every  other,  although 
surely  not  always  entertaining  the  hallucination  that 
he  is  a  paragon  of  ability.  Thus  to  love  and  to  be 
loved  is  the  secret  of  a  happy  and  successful  ministry. 

Taking  up  the  responsibilities  of  his  office  in  the 

spirit  which  I  have  described,  St.  Paul  would  have 

found  any  sphere,  however  limited,  laborious.      But, 

in  point  of  fact,  the  sphere  allotted    to  him  was  an 

enormous  one.     It  was  nothing  less  than  the  whole 

Gentile  world. 
15 


214  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

The  known  world  was  not,  indeed,  in  that  age,  of 
anything  like  the  same  dimensions  as  it  is  today.  It 
consisted  only  of  a  narrow  disc  of  countries  round 
the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  Yet  to  any  other 
man  the  vocation  to  evangelize  it  all  must  have  been 
bewildering  and  even  paralyzing.  St.  Paul,  however, 
accepted  it  in  all  seriousness,  and  ever  afterwards, 
till  the  day  of  his  death,  he  regarded  the  populations 
of  these  countries  as  people  to  whom  he  ow^ed  the 
message  of  the  Gospel.  Speaking  of  the.two/recog- 
nised  divisions  of  the  Gentile  world  of  that  day,  he 
says,  "  I  am  debtor  both  to  the  Greeks  ajid  to  the 
barbarians,  both  to  the  wise  and  to  the  unwise." 

Of  course  he  did  not  live  long  enough  to  preach 
the  Gospel  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  even  the  little 
world  of  his  day.  Yet  it  is  amazing  to  think  of  the 
range  of  his  labours.  He  preached  in  nearly  all  the 
great  cities  of  that  world — in  Antioch,  Ephesus, 
Corinth,  Athens,  Rome  and  many  others — his  pre- 
dilection for  cities  being  obviously  due  to  the  hope 
that,  when  Christ  was  made  known  in  these  crowded 
centres,  the  sound  of  his  doctrine  would  echo  through 
the  surrounding  regions.  And  this  hope  was  justi- 
fied. The  cities  in  the  province  of  Asia,  for  example, 
to  which  St.  John  sent  the  letters  in  the  beginning 
of  Revelation,  were  probably  all  evangelized  from 
Ephesus  by  converts  of  St.  Paul,  though  he  himself 


THE   PREACHER   AS  AN  APOSTLE.  215 

may  have  visited  none  of  them  but  Ephesus.  The 
passion  burned  continually  in  his  mind  to  get  for- 
ward and  cover  new  ground.  He  could  not  bear  to 
build  on  another  man's  foundation.  The  wide  unful- 
filled provinces  of  his  apostolate  ever  called  him  on. 
His  first  journey  was  merely  a  circuit  of  the  coun- 
tries bordering  to  the  west  and  north  on  his  own 
native  Cilicia,  and  lay  chiefly  among  barbarians. 
But  the  second,  after  a  still  more  extended  tour 
among  the  barbarians,  brought  him  to  the  borders 
of  that  wonderful  world  of  culture  and  renown  in 
which  dwelt  the  Greeks  as  distinguished  from  the 
barbarians.  He  was  standing  on  the  shore  of  Asia 
and  looking  across  to  the  shore  of  Europe.  In  Eu- 
rope were  the  two  great  eyes  of  the  Gentile  world^ — ■ 
Athens  and  Rome — the  one  the  centre  of  its  wisdom 
and  the  other  of  its  power.  How  could  the  Apostle 
of  the  Gentiles  help  wishing  to  preach  the  Gospel 
there?  He  crossed  the  narrow  strait,  and  then  ad- 
vanced from  one  Greek  town  to  another,  till  he  stood 
on  the  very  spot  where  Socrates  had  taught  and 
Demosthenes  thundered.  In  his  third  journey  he 
had  to  concentrate  his  work  on  Ephesus;  because, 
like  a  skilful  general,  he  would  not  leave  territory 
in  the  rear  unconquered.  But  Rome  was  now  the 
aim  of  all  his  desires — Rome,  the  very  citadel  of  the 
world  which  he  had  to  conquer.     He  approached  it 


216  .        THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

at  last  in  the  garb  of  a  prisoner  and  in  a  gang  of 
prisoners.  But,  as  we  follow  him,  we  feel  as  if  we 
were  going  with  a  victorious  army  to  take  part  in  a 
grand  triumph.  Indeed,  as  you  accompany  this 
great  spirit,  this  is  often  the  feeling  you  have.  He 
had  it  himself.  "  Thanks  be  unto  God,"  he  says, 
**  who  always  causeth  us  to  triumph."  Only  to  his 
mind  the  occupant  of  the  car  of  victory  was  not  him- 
self, but  Christ  ;  he  was  only  a  satellite,  showering 
largess  in  the  name  of  the  Victor  among  the  crowd 
around  the  chariot-wheels. 

Such  is  the  image  of  the  Apostle  which  grows  on 
the  imagination  as  we  read  his  extraordinary  life. 
Yet  there  was  another  side.  To  us  now  his  career 
is  heroic  and  glorious;  but  to  him,  at  the  time,  it 
was  beset  with  innumerable  obstacles  ;  and,  wonder- 
ful as  were  his  labours,  more  wonderful  still  were 
his  sufferings.  He  went  from  town  to  town  inces- 
santly ;  but  seldom  did  he  leave  any  place  without 
having  been  in  peril  of  his  life.  Sometimes  the  mob 
rose  against  him  and  only  left  him  when  they  had 
cast  out  of  their  town  his  apparently  lifeless  body, 
as  they  would  have  flung  away  the  carcase  of  a  dog. 
Sometimes  the  authorities  apprehended  him  and 
subjected  him  to  the  rigour  of  the  law.  But  hear 
the  catalogue  of  his  sufferings  from  his  own  lips: 
"  Are  they  ministers  of  Christ  ?  so  am  I :  in  labours 


THE   PREACHER   AS  AN  APOSTLE.  217 


more  abundant,  in  stripes  above  measure,  in  prisons 
more  frequent,  in  deaths  oft;  of  the  Jews  five  times 
received  I  forty  stripes  save  one,  thrice  was  I  beaten 
with  rods,  once  was  I  stoned,  thrice  I  suffered  ship- 
wreck, a  night  and  a  day  I  have  been  in  the  deep  ; 
in  journeyings  often,  in  perils  of  waters,  in  perils  of 
robbers,  in  perils  by  mine  own  countrymen,  in  perils 
by  the  heathen,  in  perils  in  the  city,  in  perils  in  the 
wilderness,  in  perils  in  the  sea,  in  perils  among  false 
brethren  ;  in  weariness  and  painfulness,  in  watchings 
often,  in  cold  and  nakedness ;  besides  those  things 
which  are  without,  that  which  cometh  upon  me 
daily,  the  care  of  all  the  churches."  Yet,  when  he 
wrote  this,  he  was  only  midway  in  his  career. 

These  incidents  are  glorified  now  by  the  influence 
of  time,  but,  when  they  had  to  be  endured,  they 
were  real  and  painful  enough.  To  take  but  a  single 
instance,  what  must  it  have  been  to  a  man  of  such 
sensitive  honour  and  engaged  only  in  doing  good  to 
be  so  frequently  in  the  hands  of  the  police  and  in 
the  company  of  malefactors  ?  In  his  epistles  he  can- 
not conceal  the  irritation  caused  by  his  "  chain." 
Although  in  victorious  moods  he  felt  himself,  as  we 
have  seen,  borne  onwards  in  triumph,  in  other  moods 
he  felt  himself  at  the  opposite  extreme  :  "  I  think 
that  God  hath  set  forth  us  the  apostles  last,  as  it 
were  appointed  to  death ;  for  we  are  made  a  spec- 


218  THE  PREACHER  AND    HIS  MODELS. 

tacle  unto  the  world  and  to  angels  and  to  men ;  we 
are  made  as  the  filth  of  the  world  and  are  the  off- 
scourings of  all  things  "  ;  the  reference  being  to  the 
gladiators  Avhose  cheap  lives  were  sacrificed  to  em- 
bellish the  conqueror's  triumph. 

Yet  it  was  never  long  before  he  could  rally  from 
such  depression  at  the  thought  of  the  cause  in 
which  he  suffered  all ;  and  his  habitual  mood,  in 
t'he  face  of  accumulating  difficulties,  was  expressed 
in  these  heart-stirring  words,  "  None  of  these  things 
move  me,  neither  count  I  my  life  dear  unto  myself, 
so  that  I  might  finish  my  course  with  joy  and  the 
ministry  which  I  have  received  of  the  Lord  Jesus, 
to  testify  the  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God." 

It  is  good  to  linger  beside  one  who  was  so  faith- 
ful to  his  charge,  so  hard  a  worker  and  so  patient  a 
sufferer.  We  may  learn  from  these  extraordinary 
labours  and  sufferings  to  do  honest  work  and  to  en- 
dure hardness  ourselves. 

Our  sphere  is,  indeed,  very  different  from  his.  His 
was  so  vast  as  to  be  almost  limitless  ;  ours  may  be 
very  circumscribed.  He  was  continually  moving 
from  place  to  place  and  encountering  new  people  ; 
we  may  have  to  labour  among  the  same  handful  of 
people  for  a  lifetime.  He  lived  amidst  daily  novelty 
and  excitement ;  we  may  have  to  fulfil  an  existence 
of  deep  monotony.     And  all  the  disadvantages  do 


THE   PREACHER  AS  AN  APOSTLE.  219 

not  belong  to  the  large,  difficult  and  dangerous  lot. 
It  may  seem  easy  to  be  faithful  in  a  small  sphere 
and  to  exhaust  all  its  possibilities.  But  the  narrow 
lot  has  its  trials  as  well  as  the  wide  one,  and  perhaps 
it  does  not  require  less  virtue  to  overcome  them.  A 
stronger  sense  of  duty  may  be  needed  to  prepare  an 
honest  sermon  week  by  week  to  a  small  and  compar- 
atively ignorant  congregation  than  to  bear  the  brunt 
of  danger  in  an  exposed  post  of  the  mission  field.* 

Nowhere  can  the  ministry  be  easy  if  its  responsi- 
bilities are  realised  and  its  duties  honestly  dis- 
charged. Look  forward,  I  would  say  to  you,  to  a 
labourious  life.  If  you  are  thinking  of  the  ministry 
otherwise,  you  had  better  turn  back.  Ours  is  a  more 
crowded  existence  than  that  of  any  other  profession. 

There  is  the  work  of  study  and  preaching.  I  do 
not  know  the  details  of  a  minister's  week  among 
you  ;  but  in  Scotland  ministers  have,  as  a  rule,  two 
discourses  to  prepare  for  Sunday,  besides  a  lesson 
for  the  Bible  Class,  which  may  involve  as  much 
work  as  a  sermon  ;  and  we  have  at  least  one  week- 


*  "  Go  where  you  can  do  mosty^r  men,  not  where  you  can  get  mosty>-o;« 
men. 

"  Be  more  concerned  about  your  ability  than  about  your  opportunity, 
and  about  your  walk  with  God  than  either. 

"  Your  sphere  is  where  you  are  riiost  needed. 

"  There  is  no  place  without  its  difficulties  :  by  removing  you  may  change 
them,  it  may  be  you  will  increase  them  ;  but  you  cannot  escape  them." — 
Prediger. 


220  THE  PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

day  meeting  at  which  a  lengthy  address  is  given. 
For  these  four  discourses  subjects  have  to  be  found  ; 
materials  for  exposition  and  illustration  have  to  be 
collected  ;  the  mind  has  first  to  make  each  subject 
its  own  and  then  to  shape  it  into  a  form  suitable  for 
popular  effect.  A  sermon  may  sometimes,  indeed, 
come  in  a  flash,  and  perhaps  there  is  something  of 
sudden  discovery  in  the  very  best  work  ;  but  even 
then  time  is  required  to  work  out  the  thought  and 
enrich  it  with  subsidiary  thinking  ;  and  there  are 
many  discourses  which  are  of  no  value  without  ex- 
tensive investigation  and  the  patient  working-up  of 
the  quarried  materials.  Then  follows  the  writing. 
This  will  take  at  least  six  or  eight  hours  for  a  dis- 
course, and  may  easily  take  much  more.  Many 
ministers  do  not  write  more  than  one  discourse  a 
week  fully  out,  and  probably  they  are  wise ;  but 
many  write  two.  Here,  then,  there  is  obviously  ample 
work  for  a  long  forenoon  on  five  days  of  the  week. 
I  have  always  had  to  add  the  afternoon  of  Friday 
and  Saturday,  and  often  the  evening  as  well.  Then 
comes  the  hard  and  exciting  work  of  Sunday.  It  is 
a  religious  duty  to  rest  on  Monday,  as  we  do  not 
get  the  bodily  rest  of  the  Sabbath.* 


*  "  A  sermon  which  costs  little  is  worth  as  much  as  it  has  cost.  Yet 
measure  not  the  value  of  the  sermon  by  the  length  and  hardness  of  your 
labour." — Dupanloup. 


THE   PREACHER  AS  AN  APOSTLE.  221 


There  is  the  work  of  visitation.  The  sick  and 
the  bed-ridden  must  be  visited  ;  and  it  is  of  enor- 
mous profit  to  visit  the  whole  congregation  from 
house  to  house.  As  Dr.  Chahners  said,  the  direct- 
est  way  to  a  man's  heart  is  generally  through  the 
door  of  his  home.  Acquaintance  with  the  actual 
circumstances  of  the  families  of  the  congregation 
gives  wonderful  reality  and  point  to  the  prelections 
of  Sunday.  Our  sermons  must  rise  out  of  the  con- 
gregation if  they  are  ever  to  reach  down  to  it  again. 
Here,  it  is  evident,  there  is  abundant  work  for  the 
afternoons  which  study  leaves  free.  Many  minis- 
ters have  to  add  one  or  two  evenings,  the  evening 
being  the  best  time  to  find  their  people  at  home. 

There  is  a  third  mass  of  work  of  an  exceedingly 
miscellaneous  character  which  absorbs  much  time 
and  strength.  It  includes  such  duties  as  perform- 
ing the  ceremonies  at  baptisms,  marriages  and  fu- 
nerals;  organizing  the  work  of  the  congregation; 
attending  church  courts  and  sitting  on  committees; 
serving  on  school  boards  and  the  boards  of  benevo- 
lent societies  ;  preaching  from  home  and  addressing 
the  meetings  of  neighbour  ministers  ;  writing  offi- 
cial letters ;  raising  money ;  receiving  visitors ; 
writing  for  the  press.  It  would  be  easy  for  minis- 
ters in  positions  of  any  prominence  to  spend  their 
whole  time  in  duties  of  this  description,  none  of 


222  THE   PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

which  might  appear  useless ;  so  great  is  the  multi- 
tude of  the  claims  which  pour  in  from  every  side. 

I  have  said  nothing  of  the  time  required  for  keep- 
ing abreast  of  the  literature  of  the  day  or  for  culti- 
vating an  intellectual  specialty.  It  is  extraordinary 
what  some  of  the  busiest  men  achieve  in  this  re- 
spect ;  but  it  is  only  managed  by  an  economy  and 
even  penury  of  time  for  which  a  kind  of  genius  is 
requisite.  Of  course  there  are  seasons  of  the  year 
when  the  pressure  of  public  engagements  is  not  so 
great ;  and  ministers  are  allowed  longer  holidays 
than  other  professional  men.  A  couple  of  hours  a 
day  given  from  a  holiday  to  great  reading  may 
shoot  threads  of  fresh  colour  through  the  whole  web 
of  a  season's  work.  Nor  have  I  said  anything  of 
the  time  necessary  for  thinking  over  the  devotional 
portion  of  the  service  of  the  sanctuary,  though  in 
our  churches,  where  free  prayer  prevails,  this  de- 
serves as  careful  attention  as  the  sermon. 

The  glimpse  which  I  have  given  you  into  the  de- 
tails of  a  minister's  week  will  help  you  to  realise 
that  the  life  which  lies  before  you  is  a  labourious 
one.  Of  course  the  labour  may  be  shirked.  Min- 
isters have  their  time  in  their  own  hands  ;  they 
have  no  office  hours ;  and,  I  suppose,  a  minister's 
life  may  be  more  ignobly  idle  than  any  other  pro- 
fessional man's.     That  is,  if  he  has  no  conscience. 


THE  PREACHER  AS  AN  APOSTLE.  223 

How  far  a  man  who  is  conscientious  and  works 
hard  may  be  justified  in  devoting  himself  to  one 
branch  of  ministerial  work  for  which  he  has  special 
aptitudes  or  predilections,  it  is  difficult  to  judge. 
Perhaps  the  Protestant  Church  has  failed  in  making 
use  of  special  gifts.  Some  eminent  preachers,  for 
example,  neglect  pastoral  visitation  ;*  and  there  are, 
I  suppose,  many  ministers  who  keep  out  of  more 
general  public  work,  because  they  have  no  taste  for 
it.  There  may  be  some  gain  in  this  ;  but  there  is 
also  loss.  When  a  preacher  does  not  visit,  he  is  apt 
to  become  an  orator,  who  dazzles  but  does  not  feed 
the  flock.  When  a  minister  keeps  himself  apart 
from  public  interests,  the  Church  to  which  he  be- 
longs is  likely  to  be  weak  at  that  point. 

The  most  fatal  neglect  is  that  of  study ;  and  per- 
haps it  is  the  commonest.  The  part  of  our  work 
which  needs  most  moral  resolution  is  undoubtedly 
the  sermon— to  get  it  begun,  studied,  written  and 
finished.     It  requires  the  discipline  of  years  in  even 

*  The  first  Sunday  I  was  in  America,  I  worshipped  in  the  churches  of 
Rev.  Dr.  W.  M.  Taylor  and  Rev.  Dr.  Jolin  Hall,  who  are,  I  suppose, 
the  two  most  eminent  ministers  of  New  York  ;  and  I  was  astonished  to 
hear  both  of  them  intimate  that  they  would  visit  in  certain  streets  during 
the  week.  There  are  no  ministers  anywhere  more  immersed  than  tliese 
in  every  kind  of  public  duty  ;  yet  they  find  time  for  regular  pastoral  visi- 
tation. On  coming  home,  I  mentioned  this  fact  to  an  equally  eminent 
minister  in  my  own  country.  "  Well,"  said  he,  "  when  I  came  to  the  city, 
the  elders  of  my  congregation  advised  me  not  to  visit,  and  I  followed  their 
advice ;  but  it  was  the  worst  advice  I  ever  got." 


224  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

the  most  conscientious  to  win  the  mastery  of  them- 
selves in  this  particular;  and  it  is  probably  at  this 
point  that  three-fourths  of  all  ministerial  failures 
take  place.  It  is  not  the  reading  of  the  material 
bearing  on  the  subject  which  is  difficult ;  indeed, 
this  may  be  luxuriously  prolonged,  till  it  is  too  late 
to  think  and  write  the  sermon  out.  The  hard  and 
sour  toil  lies  in  facing  the  sweat  of  thought  and  the 
irksomeness  of  writing ;  although,  when  the  diffi- 
culty is  overcome,  the  happiness  and  triumph  of  our 
caTling  lie  here  also. 

Of  course  this  difficulty  is  greatest  in  the  small 
sphere.  Here  the  temptation  is,  to  be  overcome  by 
the  monotony  of  the  situation,  to  allow  the  powers 
to  stagnate,  to  feel  that  anything  will  do,  and  put 
the  people  off  with  that  which  has  cost  no  exertion. 
"  I  know,"  says  one  who  wields  a  trenchant  pen,* 
"  how  plausible  the  excuses  are,  and  I  know  what 
relaxation  of  study  results  in — laziness  in  the  morn- 
ing, increasing  excesses  in  the  daily  papers,  increased 
interest  in  gardening,  several  more  pipes  a  day,  and 
so  forth.  Breakfast  comes  finally  to  its  long-de- 
ferred end  about  ten  ;  then  there  is  a  consultation 
with  the  gardener,  which  is,  of  course,  business,  and 
makes  the  idler  feel  that  really  his  active  habits  are 
returiting ;  then  two  letters  have  to  be  answered  ; 

*  Dr.  Marcus  Dods. 


THE  PREACHER  AS  AN  APOSTLE.  225 

then,  just  as  he  means  to  go  to  his  study,  he  sees 
Mr.  Fritterday  passing,  and  before  he  has  finished 
his  colloquy  over  the  hedge  with  him,  it  is  past 
midday.  When  he  does  get  to  his  study,  Macniil- 
lan  or  Blackwood  is  lying  on  his  table,  and  he  feels 
he  cannot  settle  till  he  knows  what  is  the  fate  of  the 
heroine  of  the  current  story,  or  his  window  over- 
looks the  busy  hayfield  of  his  neighbour,  and  he 
becomes  ten  times  more  interested  in  that  work 
than  in  his  own;  and  so  his  whole  forenoon  is  gone, 
and  he  is  summoned  to  dinner  before  he  has  earned 
his  salt  by  one  decent  hand's  turn." 

This  kind  of  temptation,  however,  is  not  confined 
to  the  man  in  the  small  and  easy  situation:  it  is 
the  common  temptation  of  all  ministers.  Only  in 
the  city  it  comes  in  another  form.  The  man  who 
has  a  large  congregation  and  a  little  popularity  is 
beset  with  calls  from  every  quarter  to  engage  in 
every  kind  of  duty  outside  his  own  sphere.  His 
doorbell  never  ceases  ringing.  Every  applicant 
supposes  his  own  case  the  most  important.  There 
is  a  whirl  of  excitement,  and  there  is  an  exhilara- 
tion in  being  able  in  many  ways  to  serve  the  public. 
But,  if  the  man  gives  up  his  habits  of  study,  he  is 
lost.  His  appearances  become  commonplace;  the 
public  tire  of  him,  and  throw  him  aside  as  ruthlessly 
as  they  have  senselessly  idolized  him.     Robert  Hall 


226  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

used  to  say  that,  when  the  devil  saw  that  a  minister 
was  likely  to  be  useful  in  the  church,  his  way  of 
disposing  of  him  was  to  get  on  his  back  and  ride 
him  to  death  with  engagements. 

To  follow  the  course  of  St.  Paul's  labours  and 
sufferings  on  the  grand  scale  produces  an  over- 
whelming impression  of  earnestness  and  devotion; 
yet  it  is  even  more  by  entering  into  the  minute  de- 
tails of  his  activity  that  we  find  the  apostle.  One 
who  has  to  deal  with  vast  masses  is  apt  to  overlook 
details ;  and  it  is  so  even  in  the  work  of  Christ. 
An  evangelist,  for  example,  moving  from  place  to 
place  and  surrounded  with  multitudes,  may  know 
very  little  of  individuals.  The  minister  of  a  large 
congregation  is  exposed  to  the  same  temptation. 
Indeed,  we  are  all  too  desirous  of  crowds'  and  too 
little  occupied  with  the  units  of  which  they  are 
composed.  But  this  is  the  greatest  of  all  mistakes. 
St.  Paul,  amidst  the  constant  change  of  scene  and 
the  pressure  of  large  bodies  of  people  in  which  he 
lived,  never  overlooked  individuals.  In  his  speech- 
to  the  elders  of  Ephesus  he  could  challenge  them 
to  bear  witness  that  he  had  taught  not  only  pub- 
licly but  from  house  to  house,  and  had  warned 
everyone  night  and  day  with  tears.  While,  like  his 
Master,  he  was  moved   by  the  sight  of  a  multitude 


THE  PREACHER   AS  AN  APOSTLE.  227 

and  welcomed  the  opportunity  of  making  known 
the  glad  tidings  to  many,  he  was  quite  as  ready  to 
preach  to  the  small  company  of  women  of  whom 
Lydia  was  one  at  the  riverside  or  to  the  soldier  to 
whom  he  was  chained  in  the  Roman  prison. 

St.  Paul  was  never  a  mere  evangelist.  The  evan- 
gelist's work  is  to  deal  with  the  initial  stage  of  the 
Christian  life :  he  has  to  bring  men  to  decision  ; 
and,  when  this  is  done,  he  passes  on,  leaving  to 
other  agencies  whatever  more  may  be  required. 
An  evangelist  sometimes  knows  very  little  of  what 
becomes  of  his  converts  after  he  has  quitted  the 
place.  But  St.  Paul  was  as  eager  about  this  as  about 
the  first  impressions.  However  small  the  company 
of  the  converted  might  be,  he  formed  them  into  a 
Christian  Church,  and  ordained  elders  in  every  city. 
He  often  left  an  assistant  behind  to  carry  on  and 
consolidate  the  work  which  he  had  begun.  When 
at  a  distance,  he  was  always  eager  for  news  about 
his  churches.  His  epistles  are  full  of  such  anxie- 
ties ;  and,  indeed,  his  epistles  themselves  are  the 
best  monument  of  his  pastoral  care  ;  for  they  were 
written  to  ask  after  the  welfare  of  those  whom  he 
had  left  behind,  or  to  give  counsel  on  points  about 
which  they  had  consulted  him.  They  brim  over 
with  the  expressions  of  a  tender  and  heartfelt  love. 
He  is  able  to  assure  those   to  whom  he  is  writing 


228  THE   PREACHER  AND  HIS  MODELS. 

that  he  is  praying  for  them,  and  that  not  only  in  the 
mass  but  one  by  one.  He  kept  their  faces  and 
names  ahve  in  his  memory  by  thus  recalHng  them 
at  the  throne  of  grace ;  and  his  life  must  have  been 
one  long  prayer  about  his  work. 

Sometimes  he  lets  the  prayer  which  he  has  been 
offering  slip  through  his  pen  ;  and  then  we  see  how 
high  was  the  ideal  of  Christian  attainment  which  he 
cherished  on  behalf  of  his  converts.  He  was  not 
content  that  they  had  turned  from  their  old  sins 
and  taken  the  first  steps  in  the  Divine  life.  He 
longed  to  see  them  becoming  creditable  specimens 
of  Christianity  and  ornaments  to  the  Church^com- 
plete  men,  thoroughly  furnished  unto  all  good 
works.  It  was  life  itself  to  him  to  hear  of  their 
progress :  "  Now  we  live  if  ye  stand  fast  in  the 
Lord."  And  the  crown  to  which  he  looked  forward 
as  the  reward  of  all  his  toils  and  sufferings  was  to 
be  permitted  at  last  to  present  the  soul  of  every- 
one of  them  as  a  chaste  virgin  to  Christ. 

Gentlemen,  I  believe  that  almost  any  preacher, 
on  reviewing  a  ministry  of  any  considerable  dura- 
tion, would  confess  that  his  great  mistake  had  been 
the  neglect  of  individuals.  If  I  may  be  permitted  a 
personal  reference :  when,  not  long  ago,  I  had  the 
opportunity,  as  I  was  passing  from  one  charge  to 
another,  of  reviewing  a  ministry  of  twelve  years,  the 


THE  PREACHER  AS  AN  APOSTLE.  229 

chief  impression  made  on  me,  as  I  looked  back,  was 
that  this  was  the  point  at  which  I  had  failed  ;  and  I 
said  to  myself  that  henceforth  I  would  write  Individ- 
uals on  my  heart  as  the  watchword  of  my  ministry. 

We  make  impressions  in  the  church  ;  but  we  do  not 
follow  them  up,  to  see  that  the  decision  is  arrived 
at  and  the  work  of  God  accomplished  ;  and  so  they 
are  dissipated  by  the  influences  of  the  world  ;  and 
those  who  have  experienced  them  are  perhaps  made 
worse  instead  of  better.  It  is  a  very  significant 
thing  that  is  said  of  the  pastor  in  our  Lord's  para- 
ble— that  he  sought  the  lost  sheep  "  until  he  found 
it."  We  seek  :  we  even  seek  labouriously  and  pain- 
fully :  but  we  frequently  leave  off  just  before  finding. 

A  minister  told  me  that,  on  the  Saturday  even- 
ing before  his  first  Sunday  in  his  first  charge,  the 
experienced  minister  who  was  to  introduce  him  to 
his  people  next  day  was  strolling  with  him  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  village  and  talking  about  his  duties, 
when  they  chanced  to  pass  a  plantation  of  trees. 
Pointing  to  them,  the  aged  minister  asked,  "  If  you 
had  to  cut  these  trees  down,  how  would  you  go 
about  it  ?  would  you  go  round  the  whole  plantation, 
giving  each  tree  a  single  blow,  and  then  go  round 
them  all  again,  giving  each  a  second  blow  "  ?  "  Well, 
no,"  he  answered,     "  I    think   I   should  attack  one 

tree  and  cut  at  it  till  it  came  down  ;  and  then  go  on 
16 


230  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

and  do  the  same  to  a  second  and  a  third,  and  so 
forth."  "  Well,"  said  his  experienced  friend,  "that 
is  the  way  you  must  do  here.  After  you  have  been 
settled  a  short  time,  you  will  discover  which  families 
and  individuals  are  most  impressed  by  your  first 
efforts,  and  you  must  devote  yourself  to  these  sus- 
ceptible souls,  till  you  have  won  them  thoroughly ; 
and  then  in  their  enthusiasm  for  yourself  and  their 
willingness  to  work  for  the  congregation  you  will 
have  the  best  foundation  for  a  successful  ministry." 

In  a  former  lecture  I  spoke  of  the  power  of  dis- 
cerning in  men  and  women  of  every  class  and  con- 
dition the  humanity  which  is  common  to  all  and 
speaking  straight  to  that,  without  reference  to  the 
superficial  differences  which  distinguish  class  from 
class  and  one  individual  from  another.  But  minis- 
terial sympathy  has  to  embrace  what  is  peculiar  to 
classes  and  individuals  as  well  as  what  is  common 
to  all.  Though  St.  Paul,  like  his  Master,  had  a 
powerful  grasp  of  what  is  universal  in  humanity,  yet 
to  the  Jew  he  made  himself  a  Jew,  that  he  might 
gain  the  Jew,  and  to  them  that  were  without  law 
as  without  law,  that  he  might  gain  them  who  were 
without  law;  he  was  made  all  things  to  all  men, 
that  he  might  gain  the  more. 

His  persuasion  obviously  was,  that  God  was  trying, 
by  His  revelation  among  those  who  possessed  the 


THE  PREACHER  AS  AN  APOSTLE.  L'31 

Written  Word,  and  by  His  providence  among  those 
who  did  not  possess  it,  to  lead  His  children  by  divers 
ways  to  Himself;  and  his  own  duty  was  to  join 
himself  to  each  company  at  the  stage  which  it  had 
reached  and  offer  to  become  its  conductor.  The 
Jew  was  more  advanced,  and  he  met  him  where  he 
was  ;  the  Gentile  was  further  behind,  and  he  had 
to  go  back  and  approach  him  also  where  he  stood, 
that  he  might  win  his  confidence  and  be  allowed  to 
lead  him  on. 

This  is  the  persuasion  which  gives  a  minister 
faith  in  his  own  work.  The  souls  of  men  are  God's, 
His  providence  is  a  discipline  intended  to  lead  them 
to  Himself;  there  are  none  with  whom  His  Spirit 
does  not  strive.  And  it  is  only  as  our  work  co-oper- 
ates with  His  that  it  is  of  any  effect.  Where  God  has 
been  working,  opening  and  softening  the  heart,  very 
simple  efforts,  put  forth  at  the  right  moment,  may 
go  a  long  way,  and  the  work  of  God  be  quickly  done. 

What  situation  could  be  more  pathetic  to  a  sen- 
sitive and  sympathetic  mind  than  that  of  a  minister 
when  he  stands  up  in  the  pulpit  and  looks  down  on 
the  congregation  ?  What  a  variety  of  conditions 
are  before  him  !  In  one  pew  there  is  a  man  who  dur- 
ing the  week  has  been  fighting  a  losing  battle  with  his 
business  and  sees  himself  on  the  verge  of  bankrupt- 
cy ;  in  the  next  may  be  a  merchant  into  whose  lap 


232  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

fortune  has  been  pouring  her  gifts  in  handfuls.  Here 
is  a  mother  who  is  thinking  of  her  son  who  has  just 
left  his  home  and  is  sailing  on  the  sea;  and  there 
a  girl  whose  heart  is  rejoicing  in  the  happy 
dreams  of  youth.  On  the  right  may  be  a  young 
man  who  is  trembling  on  the  brink  of  the  great 
temptation  of  his  life,  and  on  the  left  another  who 
is  reeking  from  some  orgy  of  secret  sin.  There  is 
endless  variety  ;  yet  none  are  uninteresting  ;  and 
probably  there  is  no  one  but,  if  you  could  meet  him 
exactly  where  he  stands,  would  respond  to  the  in- 
fluence which  you  bring.  It  arrests  men  when  you 
are  able  to  show  such  a  knowledge  of  the  human 
heart  that  they  feel  themselves  discovered  ;  and 
it  disposes  a  man  to  answer  to  your  call  if  he 
sees  that  you  are  familiar  with  the  circumstances 
in  which  he  will  have  to  lead  the  life  to  which  you 
are  inviting  him,  and  that  you  appreciate  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  situation.  Therefore  the  more  a  min- 
ister knows  of  the  variety  of  actual  life  the  better; 
and,  if  he  is  to  do  really  effective  work,  he  must 
know  how  to  come  down  from  the  pulpit  and  put 
himself  alongside  of  individuals.* 

*  "  Get  others  to  talk :  what  a  man  says  to  you  has  more  influence  upon 
him  than  all  you  can  say  to  him. 

"  It  is  not  the  time  of  sickness  so  much  as  the  time  of  convalescence 
that  decides  the  future  life.  Remember  this,  and  seize  opportuniues." — 
Pkedigkr. 


THE   PREACHER  AS  AN  APOSTLE.  283 

Here  I  might  again  recommend  the  work  of  visi- 
tation and  the  practice  of  being  accessible  at  home 
to  the  visits  of  those  who  come  with  confidences  to 
communicate;  but  let  me  rather  close  this  lecture 
with  a  word  or  two  on  some  of  the  more  favourable 
opportunities  which  ministerial  life  affords  for  direct 
dealing  with  individuals.* 

One  of  the  best  opportunities  of  this  kind  is  when 
parents  come  seeking  baptism  for  their  children. 
When  you  are  speaking  in  their  children's  interest, 
men  will  welcome  an  amount  of  faithfulness  which 
they  would  not  endure  at  other  times.  You  can 
show  how  much  their  children's  welfare  in  time  and 
eternity  may  depend  on  their  own  religious  condi- 
tion ;  you  can  urge  the  duty  of  family  worship  ;  and 
you  must  have  very  little  skill  if  you  cannot  get  very 
close  to  their  hearts.  Especially  when  a  man  comes 
about  the  baptism  of  his  first  child,  he  is  perhaps 
in  the  most  favourable  state  for  an  earnest  talk  in 

which  you  can   ever  find  him.     His  soul  is  opened 
,„^^ 

*  "  Much  of  the  Gospels  is  taken  up  with  conversations  between  Christ 
and  individuals.  Teaching  so  startling  and  difficult  as  His,  with  such  an 
element  in  it  of  attraction  and  hope,  naturally  drew  around  Him  many 
who  sought  to  know  further  what  this  Gospel  meant.  He,  on  His  part, 
was  as  eager  to  meet  inquirers  as  they  were  to  seek  Him  ;  and  we  find 
that  He  bestowed  as  much  care  and  pains  in  expounding  the  nature  of  His 
kingdom  to  individuals  as  He  did  when  He  was  speaking  to  great  multi- 
tudes. The  audience,  if  small,  was  fit.  Not  only  so,  but  we  find  that 
He  put  Himself  in  the  way  of  individuals."— NiCOLL,  The  Incarnate 
Saviour. 


234  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

with  tenderness  and  overawed  with  the  mystery  of 
Hfe  ;  he  is  longing  with  his  whole  heart  to  do  his 
best  for  his  child  ;  and,  if  you  show  him  that  the 
best  he  can  do  for  it  is  to  become  connected  with 
the  great  source  of  holy  influence  himself,  there  is 
no  other  occasion  on  which  a  good  impression  is 
more  likely  to  be  made. 

The  other  opportunity  which  I  should  like  to 
mention  is  when  the  young  come  to  join  the 
Church.  I  well  remember  that,  when  I  was  a  stu- 
dent, there  was  no  part  of  a  minister's  duty  to 
which  I  looked  forward  with  so  much  fear  and 
trembling  as  this  ;  for  I  had  the  conviction,  which 
I  still  have,  that  it  is  our  duty  at  this  crisis  to  bring 
the  question  of  personal  salvation  in  the  most  direct 
and  solemn  way  before  every  intending  communi- 
cant, and  that  it  is  ministerial  treason  to  let  the 
opportunity  slip.  Some  of  you  may  be  looking 
forward  to  this  with  the  same  feelings  ;  and,  there- 
fore, I  am  happy  to  tell  you  that  in  practice  it  is 
not  neajiy  so  difficult  as  it  seems  at  a  distance. 
The  applicants  themselves  expect  you  to  be  faith- 
ful ;  if  you  are,  they  will  honour  you  for  it,  and,  if 
not,  they  will  be  disappointed.  If  they  get  the  op- 
portunity, they  are  far  franker  than  you  would  ex- 
pect. No  doubt  it  is  delicate  work,  and  one  has 
to  guard  against  harshness  and  anything  inquisito- 


THE   PREACHER  AS  AN  APOSTLE.  235 

rial  ;  but  it  yields  the  most  blessed  results.  This  is 
the  harvest-time  of  the  minister's  year,  when  he 
sees  that  his  labour  is  not  in  vain.  Even  one  such 
close  talk,  brought  about  in  this  way  or  otherwise, 
casts  a  glow  of  reality  into  one's  work  which  does 
not  pass  away  for  weeks  ;  and,  if  a  minister  is  so 
highly  honoured  as  to  receive  many  of  these  confi- 
dences, he  acquires  a  skill  in  laying  his  finger  on  the 
very  pulse  of  his  hearers'  deepest  life  which  nothing 
else  can  give. 


LECTURE  IX. 
THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THINKER 


LECTURE  IX. 

THE   PREACHER   AS   A   THINKER. 

GENTLEMEN,  in  the  foregoing  lectures  I  have 
adverted  very  little  to  the  studies,  in  prepara- 
tion for  the  work  of  the  mjnistry,  with  which  you 
are  at  present  occupied.  Indeed,  I  have  rather 
ostentatiously  kept  to  a  standpoint  at  some  distance 
from  the  academic  one,  for  reasons  which  I  ex- 
plained in  the  opening  lecture.  But  the  clue  which 
I  have  endeavoured  faithfully  to  follow  has  brought 
us  at  last  to  this  point  also  ;  and  I  welcome  the 
opportunity  of  saying  something  about  the  more 
intellectual  aspects  of  our  work.  The  subject  to-day 
is  the  Preacher  as  a  Thinker. 

In  my  last  lecture  I  §,poke  of  the  vast  sphere  of 
operations  assigned  to  St.  Paul  and  of  the  almost  su- 
perhuman exertions  which  he  made  to  fill  it.  But 
what  did  he  exert  himself  to  fill  it  with  ?  It  was 
not  merely  to  overtake  the  ground  and  be  himself 
present  in  so  many  countries  and  cities  that  he  was 
so  zealous.  That  which  drove  him  on  was  the  glori- 
ous message  of  which  he  was  the  bearer,  with  the 


240  THE  PREACHER   AiXD    HIS  MODELS. 

sound  of  which  he  desired  to  fill  the  world.  He 
often  combines  these  two  ideas  in  his  writing's — 
that  the  Gentile  world  had  been  committed  to  him 
as  a  trust,  to  care  for  the  souls  which  it  contained, 
and  that  the  Gospel  had  been  committed  to  him  as 
a  trust,  to  be  communicated  to  the  Gentiles.  These 
two  things  were  included  in  his  apostolate — on  the 
one  hand,  the  care  of  the  heathen  world,  and,  on  the 
other,  the  publication  of  the  Gospel. 

Of  course  he  had  not,  like  the  original  apostles, 
heard  the  Gospel  from  the  lips  of  Christ ;  but  he 
had  received  it  directly  from  Christ  in  some  other 
way ;  and  you  know  how  vigorously  he  claimed 
that  he  had  not  received  it  from  man  and  was  not 
indebted  to  the  other  apostles  for  it.  He  fre- 
quently calls  it  his  own  gospel,  and  he  maintains 
it  to  be  as  authentic  and  authoritative  as  that 
preached  by  any  of  the  other  apostles.  How  it 
was  revealed  to  him  we  cannot  tell.  This  is  the 
same  mystery  as  we  encountered  in  studying  the 
prophets  of  the  Old  Testament.  Both  prophets 
and  "apostles  speak  with  a  knowledge  of  the  mind 
and  will  of  God  which  has  a  certainty  and  authority 
peculiar  to  their  writings.  We  ought  to  speak,  if 
we  speak  at  all,  with  certainty  and  authority  too  ; 
but  there  is  a  difference  between  ours  and  theirs. 
I  know  how  difficult  it  is  to  define  the  difference  ; 


THE  PREACHER  ASA    THINR'ER.  241 


we  cover  it  up  with  the  vague  word  Inspiration  ; 
but  I  do  not  see  any  use  in  hiding  from  ourselves 
that  it  exists. 

Admitting,  however,  that  there  is  this  mystery, 
yet  we  can  see,  in  some  respects,  how  the  truth, 
when  it  came,  dealt  with  St.  Paul,  and  how  his  mind 
was  exercised  about  it ;  and  in  these  respects  he  is 
not  beyond  our  imitation. 

What  I  wish  to  emphasize  in  this  lecture  is,  that 
Christianity  did  specially  lay  hold  of  him  in  the 
region  of  the  intellect.  It  is  meant  to  lay  hold  of 
all  parts  of  the  inner  man — the  feelings,  the  con- 
science, the  will,  the  intellect ;  and  it  may  lay  hold 
of  certain  people  more  fully  in  one  part  of  their  be- 
ing and  of  others  in  another  according  to  their  con- 
stitutional peculiarities.  Some  suppose — and  per- 
haps they  are  not  far  wrong — that  the  first  preaching 
of  the  Gospel  consisted  of  little  more  than  the 
simple  story  of  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  ;  that 
those  who  heard  it  sympathetically  began  forthwith 
to  live  new  lives  in  imitation  of  Christ  ;  and  that 
this  was  the  most  of  their  Christianity.  In  a  fine 
and  peculiar  nature  like  that  of  St.  John,  again,  the 
Gospel  caught  hold  chiefly  in  the  region  of  the  emo- 
tions ;  and  his  Christianity  was  a  mystical  union 
and  fellowship  between  the  Saviour  and  the  soul. 
St.  Paul  was  not  by  any  means  deficient  in  the  other 


242  THE    PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

elements  of  humanity  ;  but  he  was  conspicuously 
strong  in  intellect.  That  is  to  say,  he  was  one  of 
those  natures  to  which  it  is  a  necessity  to  know  the 
why  and  the  wherefore  of  everything — of  the  uni- 
verse in  which  they  live,  of  the  experiences  through 
which  they  pass,  of  the  ends  which  they  are  called 
upon  to  pursue.  This  natural  tendency  was  strength- 
ened by  the  training  of  an  educated  man.  And 
therefore  the  Gospel  came  to  him  as  a  message  of 
truth,  which  cleared  up  the  mysteries  of  existence 
and  presented  the  universe  to  the  mind  as  a  realm 
of  order. 

St.  Paul  often  expresses  the  intense  intellectual 
satisfaction  which  Christianity  brought  him,  and  the 
joy  he  experienced  in  applying  it  to  the  solution  of 
the  problems  of  life.  The  light  which  Christianity 
cast  on  the  universe  was  to  him,  he  says,  like  the 
morning  of  creation,  when  God  said.  Let  there  be 
light,  and  there  was  light.  Before,  all  was  darkness 
and  chaos,  but  then  all  became  sunshine  and  order. 
He  often  speaks  with  wondering  gratitude  of  the  fact 
that  the  mystery  which  had  been  hidden  from  ages 
and  from  generations  had  been  revealed  to  him : 
Eye  had  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither  had  entered 
into  the  heart  of  man,  the  things  which  God  had 
prepared  for  them  that  love  Him,  but  God  had 
revealed  them  unto  him  by  His  Spirit.     And  by  this 


THE  PREACHER  ASA    THINKER.  243 

mystery  he  meant  the  tangle  of  God's  providence  in 
history,  which  the  coming  of  Christ  disentangled  and 
smoothed  out  into  a  web  whose  pattern  the  mind 
could  discern. 

Having  himself  received  Christianity  as  an  intel- 
lectual system,  he  very  specially  addressed  himself 
to  the  intellect  of  others.  The  door  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  it  has  been  beautifully  said,  can  only  be 
opened  from  the  inside  ;  but  to  that  observation  this 
other  may  be  added,  that  in  a  sense  there  are  many 
doors,  but  each  man  can  only  open  to  others  the 
one  by  which  he  has  entered  himself,  Christianity 
had  come  to  St.  Paul  as  the  truth  about  God  and 
the  world  and  himself.  There  was  plenty  of  emo- 
tion besides ;  but  the  emotion  for  him  came  after 
the  clear  intellectual  conviction  and  sprang  out  of 
it.  And  he  expected  that  others  would  receive 
Christianity  in  the  same  way.  Therefore  he  never 
spared  the  minds  of  those  he  addressed  ;  he  ex- 
pected them  to  think  ;  and  he  would  have  said  that, 
if  they  would  not  open  and  exert  their  minds,  they 
could  not  receive  Christianity. 

I  hardly  know  anything  more  puzzling  than  the 
audacity  with  which  he  cast  himself  on  the  minds 
of  his  hearers  and  trusted  them  to  understand  him, 
when  he  was  thinking  his  strongest  and  his  deepest. 
Imagine  an  epistle  of  his  arriving  in  Rome  or  Ephe- 


244  THE  PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

sus,  and  read  out  in  the  audience  of  the  church  for 
the  first  time.  Who  were  the  hearers?  The  ma- 
jority of  them  were  slaves  ;  many  had  till  a  short 
time  before  been  unconcerned  about  religion  ;  in 
all  probability  not  a  tithe  of  them  could  read  or 
write.  Yet  what  did  Paul  give  them  ?  Not  milk 
for  babes ;  not  a  compost  of  stories  and  practical 
remarks;  but  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  with  its 
strict  logic  and  grand  ideas,  or  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians,  with  its  involved  sentences  and  profound 
mysticism.  He  must  have  believed  that  they  would 
understand  what  he  wrote,  though  scholarship  has 
considered  it  necessary  to  pile  up  a  mountain  of 
commentaries  on  these  epistles.  Christianity,  as  it 
went  through  the  cities  of  the  world  in  St.  Paul's 
person,  must  have  gone  as  a  great  intellectual 
awakening,  which  taught  men  to  use  their  minds 
in  investigating  the  profoundest  problems  of  life. 

How  deeply  he  was  interested  in  the  intellectual 
reception  of  the  Gospel  is  shown  by  the  earnestness 
with  which  he  prays  that  his  converts  may  excel  in 
mental  grasp  of  the  truth.  "  I  pray,"  he  says,  "  that 
your  love  may  abound  yet  more  and  more  in  knowl- 
edge and  in  all  judgment."  And  again  he  says, 
"  Making  mention  of  you  in  my  prayers,  that  the 
God  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Father  of  glory, 
may  give  unto  you  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  revela- 


THE  PREACHER  ASA    THINKER.  245 

tion  in  the  knowledge  of  Him,  the  eyes  of  your  un- 
derstanding being  enlightened,"  etc. 

But  nothing  proves  so  clearly  the  value  which  he 
set  on  this  element  of  Christianity  as  his  earnest- 
ness that  his  version  of  the  Gospel  should  be  kept 
pure  and  entire.  He  called  upon  younger  ministers, 
like  Timothy  and  Titus,  to  guard  it  as  a  precious 
treasure  and  to  transmit  it  to  faithful  men  who 
would  be  able  to  teach  others  also.  It  filled  him 
with  the  most  poignant  anxiety  and  pain  when  the 
minds  of  his  converts  were  assailed  with  doctrines 
subversive  of  the  truth  which  he  had  taught.  He 
had  to  encounter  assaults  of  this  kind  coming  from 
the  side  of  orthodoxy  as  well  as  of  heterodoxy,  and 
no  small  portion  of  his  energy  had  to  be  expended 
in  refuting  them.  You  remember,  for  example, 
with  what  a  heat  of  zeal  and  affection  he  cast  him- 
self on  the  Galatians,  when  they  had  lent  an  ear  to 
false  teachers  :  "  O  foolish  Galatians,  v/ho  hath  be- 
witched you  ?  "  "If  any  man  preach  any  other  gos- 
pel unto  you  than  that  which  ye  have  received,  let 
him  be  accursed." 

Gentlemen,  you  are  going  to  be  teachers  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  this  implies  that  you  should  yourselves 
have  mastered  it  in  thought.     A  certain  number  of 

people  will  be  more  or  less    dependent    on  you  for 
17 


246  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

the  view  they  have  of  Christianity;  and  this  really 
means  the  view  they  have  of  all  the  most  impor- 
tant and  solemn  objects  of  existence ;  for  to  them  all 
things  will  be  comprehended  in  Christianity;  and 
on  you  will  largely  depend  whether  this  view  is 
true  or  false,  narrow  or  noble. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  importance 
to  men  and  women  of  their  fundamental  convictions 
about  this  universe  in  which  they  live.  There  is 
current,  indeed,  at  present  a  way  of  speaking  about 
the  intellect,  as  if,  while  all  the  other  faculties  have 
to  do  with  religion,  it  were  only  an  intruder  ;  and 
there  is  a  way  of  speaking  about  definite  religious 
truth  which  really  implies,  if  any  strict  meaning  is 
to  be  attached  to  it,  that  in  religion,  when  the  truth 
is  not  found,  the  opposite  may  answer  quite  as 
well  ;  and  yet,  strange  to  say,  this  language  is  usu- 
ally to  be  heard  from  the  lips  of  those  who  make 
special  claims  to  intellectuality  and  affect  to  be  the 
special  champions  of  truth.  But  the  intellect  is  a 
noble  faculty  and  has  an  important  office  in  religion. 
It  is,  properly  speaking,  antecedent  to  both  feeling 
and  will;  and  what  is  put  into  it  determines  both 
what  feeling  and  choice  will  be.  People  are  often, 
indeed,  swept  into  the  Church  on  some  current  of 
feeling ;  and  the  pressure  on  every  side  of  the 
Christian   society,  along  with    the   examples  of  su- 


THE   PREACHER   ASA    THINKER.  247 

perior  Christians,  does  much  to  develop  the  reHg- 
ious  nature  ;  but  probably  in  the  great  crises  of 
temptation,  when  a  flood  of  passion  or  some  great 
worldly  opportunity  is  about  to  sweep  a  man  away 
from  his  connection  with  Christ,  that  which  keeps 
hold  of  him  is  the  force  of  conviction — if  the  roots  of 
his  mind  have  gone  deep  down  and  clasped  them- 
selves about  the  great  verities  of  the  faith.  Our  Lord 
Himself  called  the  truth  the  foundation  on  which 
the  whole  structure  of  life  is  built.  All  that  a  man 
is  and  does  depends,  in  the  last  resort,  on  what  he 
knows  and  believes.  It  will  be  a  calamity  for  your 
hearers,  if  from  your  preaching  they  are  not  able  by 
degrees  to  put  together  in  their  mincis  a  conception 
of  Christianity  both  true  and  elevating,  which  will 
supply  them  with  the  fundamental  principles  of 
their  life. 

Besides  this  sacred  obligation  to  our  people, 
there  is  the  obligation  to  the  truth  itself.  This  was 
felt  by  St.  Paul  profoundly.  A  revelation  of  Chris- 
tianity had  been  committed  to  him,  and  he  had  to 
present  it  in  all  its  splendour  and  apply  it  to  all  the 
details  of  life.  So  the  Word  of  God  is  committed 
to  us,  and  we  are  responsible  for  delivering  its  whole 
message.  If  we  take  up  a  single  text  of  the  Bible, 
our  merit  as  preachers  lies  in  bringing  out  attract- 
ively and  comprehensively  the  truth  which  it  con- 


248  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

tains.  It  would  be  considered  still  more  meritori- 
ous to  present  the  whole  message  contained  in  a 
book  of  the  Bible;  and  it  would  be  quite  in  accord- 
ance with  the  theological  fashion  of  the  time  if  a 
preacher  were  able  to  show  that  he  was  master  of 
some  single  section  of  Scripture,  say,  the  Prophets 
of  the  Old  Testament  or  the  writings  of  St.  John. 
I  do  not  know  why  we  should  hesitate  about  the 
next  step,  which,  if  we  have  gone  so  far,  we  are 
logically  bound  to  take — the  mastery  of  the  mes- 
sage of  the  Bible  as  a  whole.  This  is  what  we  are 
responsible  for.  The  Bible  is  the  message  of  the 
mind  and  will  of  the  loving  and  redeeming  God  ; 
and  this  we  are  bound  to  deliver  in  such  a  way  that 
neither  its  truth  nor  its  glory  will  suffer  in  our 
hands. 

How  this  is  to  be  done,  of  course  it  requires  wis- 
dom to  decide,  and  there  will  doubtless  be  different 
ways  for  different  men  and  for  different  times.  In  a 
former  generation  a  president  of  this  college* 
preached  in  the  College  Chapel  straight  through 
the  do.ctrines  of  Christianity,  taking  them  up  one  by 
one  in  systematic  order ;  and  his  book  was  long  a 
model  to  preachers  both  in  this  country  and  Great 
Britain.  He  was  preaching  to  an  academic  audi- 
ence, and  there  are  probably  few  congregations  for 

*  The  earlier  President  Dwight. 


THE   PREACHER   AS  A    THINKER.  249 


which  such  a  course  would  be  suitable  now  ;  although 
I  know  at  least  one  able  young  minister  in  a  country 
village  who   has    been  pursuing  this   method    from 
the  commencement  of  his  ministry.     Once  a  month 
he  gives  a  sermon  of  the  course  ;  perhaps  his  people 
do  not  know  that  he  is  doing  so;  but  he  is  giving 
his  own  mind    the    discipline   of  investigating  the 
doctrines   of  Christianity  in  their   order;  and  I  am 
certain  both  that   he    himself  is  growing  a  strong 
man  in  the  process  and  that  his  people,  though  un- 
consciously, are  getting  the  benefit  of  it.     In  the 
Lutheran  and   Episcopal   Churches  the   observance 
of  the  Christian  festivals  gives  occasion  for  regularly 
bringing  the  circle  of  the  grand  Christian  facts  be- 
fore the  minds  of  the  people.     We  have   not  this 
guidance;  but  a  faithful  minister  is  bound  to  make 
sure  that  he  is  preaching  with  sufficient  frequency 
on  the  leading  Christian   facts  and   doctrines,  and 
that  he   is   not  omitting  any  essential  element  of 
Christianity.* 

Not  unfrequently  ministers  are  exhorted  to  cul- 
tivate extreme  simplicity  in  their  preaching.  Every- 
thing ought,  we  are  told,  to  be  brought  down  to 
the   comprehension   of    the  most   ignorant    hearer, 


*  "  Great  subjects  insure  solid  thinking.  Solid  thinking  prompts  a  sen- 
sible style,  an  athletic  style,  on  some  themes  a  magnificent  style,  and 
on  all  themes  a  natural  style. "-Phelps,  My  Note-book. 


250  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

and  even  of  children.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  depre- 
ciate the  place  of  the  simplest  in  the  congregation  ; 
it  is  one  of  the  best  features  of  the  Church  of  the 
present  day  that  it  cares  for  tlie  lambs.  I  dealt 
with  this  subject,  not  unsympathetically  I  hope,  in 
a  former  lecture.  But  do  not  ask  us  to  be  always 
speaking  to  children  or  to  beginners.  Is  the  Bible 
always  simple  ?  Is  Job  simple,  or  Isaiah  ?  Is  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  simple,  or  Galatians?  This 
cry  for  simplicity  is  three-fourths  intellectual  lazi- 
ness;  and  that  Church  is  doomed  in  which  there  is 
not  supplied  meat  for  men  as  well  as  milk  for  babes. 
We  owe  the  Gospel  not  only  to  the  barbarian  but 
also  to  the  Greek,  not  only  to  the  unwise  but  also 
to  the  wise.* 

I  do  not  believe,  however,  that  it  is  only  in  cult- 
ured congregations  that  this  element  of  preaching 
is  required.  There  is  no  greater  mistake  than  to 
suppose  that  you  will  drive  the  common  man  away 
from  the  Church  by  strong  intellectual  preaching. 
You  will    do   so  no  doubt   if  you   preach   over  his 

*  "  We  owe  it  to  the  Cliurch,  we  owe  it  to  the  time  in  which  God  has 
called  us  to  labour,  we  owe  it  lo  the  restless  and  perplexed  but  often 
honest  minds  in  whose  presence  we  carry  on  our  ministry,  to  be  not 
merely  a  hard-wi  rking  but  a  learned  clergy.  To  those  great  questions 
which  both  stir  and  disquiet  men,  we  are  bound  to  bring  that  knowledge 
which  will  give  us  a  claim  to  be  listened  to.  '  Know  as  much  as  you 
can  ; '  that  nught  to  be  the  rule  to  which  an  educated  clergyman  should 
hold  himself  forever  tied.  A  clergyman  ought  to  be  a  stitdent,  a  reader 
and  a  thinker,  to  the  very  end." — Dean  Church. 


THE   PREACHER  ASA    THINKER.  251 

head,*  and  use  a  language  which  he  does  not  un- 
derstand. You  must  find  him  where  he  is,  and 
either  speak  to  him  in  his  own  language  or  teacii 
him  yours  by  slow  degrees.  But,  if  you  accommo- 
date yourself  to  him  so  far,  you  will  find  him  alert 
and  willing  to  accompany  you  ;  you  will  find  that 
he  has  not  only  sturdy  limbs  for  climbing,  but  even 
wings  for  soaring  to  the  heights  of  truth. 

A  greater  difficulty  lies  in  the  preacher  himself. 
At  the  beginning  of  his  ministry  he  may  be  encum- 
bered with  doubts  and  far  from  clear  in  his  faith. 
This  is  a  real  obstacle,  and  the  first  years  of  minis- 
terial life  may  be  a  time  of  great  perplexity  and 
pain.  I  suspect  our  congregations  have  often  a 
good  deal  to  suffer  while  we  are  endeavouring  to 
preach  ourselves  clear.  It  is  vicarious  suffering ; 
for  they  do  not  know  what  is  perplexing  us.  They 
have  to  stand  by  and  look  on  while  their  minister 
is  fighting  his  doubts.  But,  if  he  is  a  true  man,  it 
is  worth  their  while  to  wait.  If  these  are  the  pangs 
of  intellectual  birth,  and  the  truth  is  merely  divest- 
ing itself  of  a  traditional  form  in  order  to  invest  it- 
self in  a  form  which  is  his  own,  he  will  preach  with 
far  greater  power  when   the  process   is    complete. 


*  Richard  Baxter  confesses  that  he  deliberately  preached  over  the  heads 
of  his  people  once  a  year,  for  the  purpose  of  keepinij  them  humble  and 
showinn;  them  what  their  minister  could  do  every  Sunday  of  the  year,  if 
he  chose  ! 


/, 


252  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

and   he   is  able   to  speak  with  the  strength  of  per- 
sonal conviction. 

But,  gentlemen,  it  is  important  for  you  to  see 
that  your  opening  ministry  is  not  enveloped  in  mist 
simply  because  you  have  never  made  a  real  study 
of  Christianity.  This,  I  am  afraid,  is  the  common- 
est source  of  a  vague  theology.  In  a  former  lect- 
ure I  have  recommended  a  wide  acquaintance  with 
the  masterpieces  of  literature  ;  but  some  able  men 
at  college  substitute  this  for  the  studies  of  their 
profession  ;  and  this  is  a  fatal  mistake.  Literature 
ought  to  be  a  supplement  to  these,  not  a  substitute 
for  them.  I  have  watched  the  subsequent  career 
of  more  than  one  student  who  had  pursued  this 
course ;  and  I  must  say  it  is  not  encouraging. 
Their  supply  of  ideas  soon  runs  out ;  their  tone  be- 
comes secular  ;  and  the  people  turn  away  from  them 
dissatisfied. 

A  student  ought,  while  at  college,  to  make  him- 
self master  of  at  least  one  or  two  of  the  great  books 
of  the  Christian  centuries  in  which  Christianity  is 
exhibited  as  a  whole  by  a  master  mind.  If  I  may 
be  allowed  to  mention  my  own  experience,  it  hap- 
pened to  me,  more  by  chance,  perhaps,  than  wise 
choice,  to  master,  when  I  was  a  student,  three  such 
books.  One  was  Owen's  work  on  TJie  Holy  Spirit., 
j    another  Weiss'  New  Testament   Theology^  and  the 


THE   PREACHER  AS  A    THINKER.  25 3 

third  Conybeare  and  Howson's  Life  and  Epistles  of 
St.  Paul.  Each  of  these  may  be  said,  in  its  own 
wa)',  to  exhibit  Christianity  entire,  and  I  learned 
them  almost  by  heart,  as  one  does  a  text-book.  I 
was  not  then  thinking  much  of  subsequent  benefit ; 
but  I  can  say,  that  each  of  them  has  ever  since  been 
a  quarry  out  of  which  I  have  dug,  and  probably  I 
have  hardly  ever  preached  a  sermon  which  has  not 
exhibited  traces  of  their  influence. 

There  is  another  valuable  result  which  will  fol- 
low from  the  early  mastery  of  books  of  this  kind. 
You  will  be  laying  the  foundation  of  the  habit  of 
what  may  be  called  Great  Reading,  by  which  I  mean 
the  systematic  study  of  great  theological  works  in 
addition  to  the  special  reading  for  the  work  of  each 
Sunday.  Week  by  week  a  conscientious  minister 
has  to  do  an  immense  amount  of  miscellaneous 
reading  in  commentaries,  dictionaries,  etc.,  in  con- 
nection with  the  discourses  in  hand  ;  but,  in  addi- 
tion to  this,  he  should  be  enriching  the  subsoil  of 
his  mind  by  larger  efforts  in  wider  fields.  It  is  far 
from  easy  to  carry  this  on  in  a  busy  pastorate  ;  and 
it  is  almost  impossible  unless  the  foundation  has 
been  laid  at  collefje.* 


*  "  A  sentence  of  Pascal  would  sometimes  shoot  more  light  and  life 
through  a  sermon  than  all  the  commentators  upon  the  text  since  th» 
days  of  Noah." — Principal  Rainy. 


254  THE  PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

One  more  hint  I  should  like  to  give  :  it  is  a  remi- 
niscence from  a  casual  lecture  which  I  listened  to 
when  a  student  and  profited  b^'.  Besides  attending 
to  theological  studies  in  general,  one  ought  to  have 
a  specialty.  The  minister,  and  even  the  student 
before  he  leaves  college,  should  be  spoken  of  as  the 
mao  who  knows  this  or  that.  Perhaps  the  best 
specialty  to  choose  is  some  subject  which  is  just 
coming  into  notice,  such  as,  at  present.  Compara- 
tive Religion,  or  Christian  Ethics,  or,  best  of  all, 
Biblical  Theology,  Such  a  specialty,  early  taken 
up,  is  like  a  well  dug  on  one's  property,  which  year 
by  year  becomes  deeper.  All  the  little  streams  and 
rivulets  of  reading  and  experience  find  their  way  into 
it ;  and  almost  unawares  the  happy  possessor  comes 
to  have  within  himself  a  fountain  which  makes  it 
impossible  that  his  mind  should  ever  run  dry. 

Of  course  I  cannot  attempt  to  give  here  even  the 
slightest  sketch  of  the  doctrinal  system  of  St.  Paul ; 
but  there  are  two  characteristics  of  it  which  I 
should  like  to  mention  in  closing,  as  they  are  essen- 
tial to  the  right  management  of  the  element  of 
preaching  with  which  I  have  occupied  you  to-day. 

The  thinking  of  St.  Paul  went  hand  in  hand  with 
his  experience.  His  Christianity  began  in  a  great 
experience,  in  which  he  discovered  the  secret  of  life 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    THINKER.  255 

and  found  peace  with  God.  He  set  his  mind  to  re- 
flect upon  this,  so  as  to  comprehend  how  it  came 
about  and  what  it  involved  ;  and  the  theology  of 
the  first  part  of  his  apostolate  was  nothing  but  the 
result  of  these  broodings  under  the  guidance  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  These  in  their  turn,  however,  brought 
him  still  nearer  to  God  and  closer  to  Christ ;  and  so 
he  obtained  new  and  deeper  experiences,  of  which 
the  doctrines  of  his  more  advanced  life  are  again 
the  exposition.  Thus  his  thinking  was  both  ex- 
perimental and  progressive.  If  his  Epistles  be  ar- 
ranged in  chronological  order,  it  will  easily  be  seen 
that  there  is  a  splendid  growth  in  his  theology 
from  first  to  last.  He  never,  indeed,  gave  up  the 
doctrines  of  his  earlier  life  ;  there  is  no  inconsist- 
ency between  one  part  of  his  writings  and  another; 
but  neither  his  experience  nor  his  thinking  ever 
stood  still  ;  he  made  his  first  doctrines  the  founda- 
tions on  which  he  reared  a  structure  which  was  rising 
higher  and  higher  to  the  very  close  of  his  life. 

St.  Paul  had  the  heartiest  scorn  for  intellectual- 
ism  in  religion  divorced  from  experience ;  and  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  it  is  this  divorce  which  has 
brought  contempt  on  the  intellectual  element  in 
preaching.  When  doctrine  is  preached  as  mere 
dogma,  imposed  as  a  form  on  the  mind  of  the 
preacher  from   without,    no    wonder   it  is  dry   and 


25 G  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS  MODELS. 

barren.  It  is  \\'hen  the  preacher's  own  experience 
is  growing,  and  he  is  coming  up  with  the  doctrines 
of  Christianity  one  by  one  as  the  natural  expression 
for  what  he  knows  in  his  deepest  consciousness  to 
be  true,  that  he  utters  the  truth  with  power. 
Never,  perhaps,  is  a  sermon  so  living  as  when  the 
preacher  has  found  out  the  truth  during  the  week 
as  a  novelty  to  himself,  and  comes  forth  on  Sunday 
to  deliver  it  with  the  joy  of  discovery. 

The  other  feature  to  which  I  wish  to  draw  atten- 
tion is  the  perfect  balance  in  St.  Paul  of  the  doc- 
trinal and  the  ethical.  If  reproach  has  been  cast 
on  the  intellectual  element  in  preaching  by  its  want 
of  connection  with  experience,  this  has  been  done 
no  less  by  its  want  of  connection  with  conduct. 
But  St.  Paul  is  not  open  to  this  reproach.  This  is 
made  clear  by  the  very  external  form  of  his  writ- 
ings. An  Epistle  of  St.  Paul  is  divided  into  two 
parts,  the  first  containing  doctrines  and  the  second 
practical  rules  for  the  conduct  of  life;  and  not  un- 
frequently  the  two  parts  are  of  about  equal  length. 

JBut  the  connection  is  far  closer  than  this.  In  St. 
Paul's  mind  all  the  great  doctrines  of  the  Gospel 
were  living  fountains  of  motives  for  well-doing; 
and  even  the  smallest  and  commonest  duties  of 
every-day  life  were  magnified  and  made  sacred  by" 
being  connected  with  the  facts  of  salvation.     Take 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    THINKER.  25  7 

a  single  instance.  There  is  no  plainer  duty  of 
every-day  life  than  telling  the  truth.  Well,  how 
does  St.  Paul  treat  it  ?  "  Lie  not  one  to  another," 
he  says,  "  seeing  ye  have  put  off  the  old  man  with 
his  deeds."  Thus  truthfulness  flows  out  of  regen- 
eration. Treating  of  the  same  subject  again,  he 
says,  "  Lie  not  one  to  another,  for  ye  are  members 
one  of  another,"  deriving  the  duty  from  the  union 
of  believers  to  one  another  through  their  common 
union  with  Christ.*  Thus  does  St.  Paul  every- 
where show  great  principles  in  small  duties  and 
stamp  the  commonest  actions  of  life  with  the  image 
and  the  superscription  of  Christ. 

This  balance  between  the  doctrinal  and  the  moral 
is  difficult  to  maintain.     Seldom  has  the  mind  of  the 

*  Rev.  Dr.  Henderson,  of  Crieff,  told  me  a  story  which  illustrates  in  an 
amusing  yet  significant  way  the  change  which  pa  sed  over  the  relig  ous 
mind  of  Scotland  in  the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  His  father, 
the  late  Rev.  Dr.  Henderson,  of  Glasgow,  when  newly  licensed,  was 
preaching,  on  the  Saturday  before  a  communion,  for  an  extremely  Mod- 
erate minister  of  the  dignifi-d  and  pompous  school.  "  I  do  not  know,  Mr. 
Hend  rson,"  said  the  latter,  "  what  is  the  difference  between  you  evan- 
gelicals and  us  ;  but  I  suppose  it  is  that  you  preach  doctrines,  while  we 
preach  duties."  "  I  do  not  know  about  that,"  said  Mr.  Henderson  ;  "we 
preach  duties  too."  ''  Well,"  tad  the  old  man,  "  for  example,  my  action 
sermon  to-morrow  is  to  be  on  lying  ;  and  my  divisions  are — first,  the 
nature  of  lying  ;  secondly,  the  sin  of  lying  ;  and  thirdly,  the  consequences 
of  lying  :  now  what  could  you  add  to  that  ?."  "  Well,"  replied  Mr. 
Henderson,  "  I  would  add  two  things — first,  '  Lie  not  one  to  another, 
seeing  ye  have  put  off  the  old  man  with  his  deeds,'  and  secondly,  '  Put- 
ting away  lying,  speak  every  man  truth  with  his  neighbour  ;  for  we  are 
members  one  of  another.'  "  "  Mr.  Henderson,  these  suggestions  are 
admirable  :  I  shall  add  them  to  my  discourse  !  " 


258  THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS   MODELS. 

Church  been  able  to  preserve  it  for  any  length  of^ 
time.  It  has  oscillated  from  one  kind  of  one-sided- 
ness  to  another,  sometimes  exalting  doctrines  and 
neglecting  duties  and  at  other  times  preaching  up 
morality  and  disparaging  doctrine.  To  which  side 
the  balance  may  be  dipping  at  the  present  time 
among  you  I  do  not  know  ;  but  among  us,  I  should 
say,  it  was  from  doctrines  towards  duties. 

Perhaps  in  the  last  generation  we  had  too  much, 
preaching  of  doctrine,  or  rather  I  should  say,  too 
little  preaching  of  duty.  Younger  preachers  are  be- 
ginning to  dwell  much  on  a  nobler  conception  of 
the  Christian  life,  and  there  is  a  strong  demand  for 
practical  preaching.  Undoubtedly  there  is  room 
for  a  healthy  development  in  this  direction.  Yet 
this  is  a  transition  about  which  our  country  has 
good  cause  to  be  jealous ;  because  it  passed 
through  a  terrible  experience  of  the  effects  of 
preaching  morality  without  doctrine.  I  question 
if  in  the  whole  history  of  the  pulpit  there  is  a 
document  more  worthy  of  the  attention  of  preach- 
ers than  the  address  which  Dr.  Chalmers  sent  to 
the  people  of  his  first  charge  at  Kilmeny,  when 
he  was  leaving  it  for  Glasgow.  It  is  well  known 
that  for  seven  years  after  his  settlement  in  this 
rural  parish  he  was  ignorant  of  the  Gospel  and 
preached    only    the     platitudes   of    the    Moderate 


THE   PREACHER   ASA    THINKER.  259 

creed  ;  but,  the  grace  of  God  having  visited  his 
heart,  he  lived  for  other  five  years  among  his  peo- 
ple as  a  true  ambassador  of  Christ,  beseeching 
them  in  Christ's  name  to  be  reconciled  to  God. 
This  is  his  summing  up  of  the  results  of  the  two 
periods : — 

"  And  here  I  cannot  but  record  the  effect  of  an 
actual  though  undesigned  experiment,  which  I  pros- 
ecuted for  upwards  of  twelve  years  among  you.  For 
the  greater  part  of  that  time  I  could  expatiate  on 
the  meanness  of  dishonesty,  on  the  villany  of  false- 
hood, on  the  despicable  arts  of  calumny  ;  in  a  word, 
upon  all  those  deformities  of  character  which  awaken 
the  natural  indignation  of  the  human  heart  against 
the  pests  and  the  disturbers  of  human  society.  Now, 
could  I,  upon  the  strength  of  these  warm  expostu- 
lations, have  got  the  thief  to  give  up  his  stealing,  and 
the  evil  speaker  his  censoriousness,  and  the  liar  his 
deviations  from  truth,  I  should  have  felt  all  the 
repose  of  one  who  had  gotten  his  ultimate  object. 
It  never  occurred  to  me  that  all  this  might  have  been 
done,  and  yet  the  soul  of  every  hearer  have  remained 
in  full  alienation  from  God  ;  and  that,  even  could  I 
have  established  in  the  bosom  of  one  who  stole  such 
a  principle  of  abhorrence  at  the  meanness  of  dis- 
honesty that  he  was  prevailed  upon  to  steal  no  more, 
he  might  still  have  retained  a  heart  as  completely 


260  THE   PREACHER   AND  HIS  MODELS. 

unturned  to  God  and  as  totally  unpossessed  by  a 
principle  of  love  to  Him  as  before.  In  a  word, 
though  I  might  have  made  him  a  more  upright  and 
honourable  man,  I  might  have  left  him  as  destitute 
of  the  essence  of  religious  principle  as  ever.  But 
the  interesting  fact  is,  that  during  the  whole  of  that 
period  in  which  I  made  no  attempt  against  the 
natural  enmity  of  the  mind  to  God  ;  while  I  was 
inattentive  to  the  way  in  which  this  enmity  is  dis- 
solved, even  by  the  free  offer  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  believing  acceptance  on  the  other,  of  the  Gospel 
salvation  ;  while  Christ,  through  whose  blood  the 
sinner,  who  by  nature  stands  afar  off,  is  brought  near 
to  the  heavenly  Lawgiver,  whom  he  has  offended, 
was  scarcely  ever  spoken  of,  or  spoken  of  in  such  a 
way  as  stripped  Him  of  all  the  importance  of  His 
character  and  His  offices;  even  at  this  time  I  cer- 
tainly did  press  the  reformations  of  honour  and  truth 
and  integrity  among  my  people  ;  but  I  never  once 
heard  of  any  such  reformations  having  been  effected 
amongst  them.  If  there  was  anything  at  all  brought 
about  in  this  way,  it  was  more  than  ever  I  got  any 
account  of.  I  am  not  sensible  that  all  the  vehe- 
mence with  which  I  urged  the  virtues  and  the  pro- 
prieties of  social  life  had  the  weight  of  a  feather  on 
the  moral  habitsof  my  parishioners.  And  it  was  not 
till  I  got   impressed   by   the  utter  alienation  of  the 


THE  PREACHER  AS  A    THINKER.  261 


heart  in  all  its  desires  and  affections  from  God  ;  it 
was  not  till  reconciliation  to  Him  became  the  dis- 
tinct and  the  prominent  object  of  my  ministerial 
exertions  ;  it  was  not  till  I  took  the  Scriptural  way 
of  laying  the  method  of  reconciliation  before  them; 
it  was  not  till  the  free  offer  of  forgiveness  through 
the  blood  of  Christ  was  urged  upon  their  acceptance, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit,  given  through  the  channel  of 
Christ's  mediatorship  to  all  who  ask  Him,  was  set 
before  them  as  the  unceasing  object  of  their  depend- 
ence and  their  prayers  ;  in  one  word,  it  was  not  till 
the  contemplations  of  my  people  v/ere  turned  to 
these  great  and  essential  elements  in  the  business 
of  a  soul  providing  for  its  interest  with  God  and  the 
concerns  of  its  eternity,  that  I  ever  heard  of  any  of 
those  subordinate  reformations  which  I  aforetime 
made  the  earnest  and  the  zealous,  but,  I  am  afraid, 
at  the  same  time  the  ultimate  object  of  my  earlier 
ministrations.  Ye  servants,  whose  scrupulous  fidel- 
ity has  now  attracted  the  notice,  and  drawn  forth  in 
my  hearing  a  delightful  testimony  from  your  masters, 
what  mischief  you  would  have  done,  had  your  zeal 
for  doctrines  and  sacraments  been  accompanied  by 
the  sloth  and  the  remissness,  and  what,  in  the  pre- 
vailing tone  of  moral  relaxation,  is  counted  the 
allowable  purloining  of  your  earlier  days.  But  a 
sense  of  your  Heavenly  Master's  eye  has  brought 
IS 


262  THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS  MODELS. 

another  influence  to  bear  upon  you  ;  and,  while  you 
are  thus  striving  to  adorn  the  doctrine  of  God  your 
Saviour  in  all  things,  you  may,  poor  as  you  are,  re- 
claim the  great  ones  of  the  land  to  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  faith.  You  have  at  least  taught  me 
that  to  preach  Christ  is  the  only  effective  way  of 
preaching  morality  in  all  its  branches  ;  and  out  of 
your  humble  cottages  have  I  gathered  a  lesson, 
which  I  pray  God  I  may  be  enabled  to  carry  with 
all  its  simplicity  into  a  wider  theatre,  and  to  bring 
with  all  the  power  of  its  subduing  efficacy  upon  the 
voices  of  a  more  crowded  population." 

There  is  nothing  which  I  should  more  like  to 
leave  ringing  in  your  ears  than  this  remarkable 
statement  of  my  great  fellow-countryman.  But  I 
cannot  close  and  bid  you  farewell  without  express- 
ing the  happiness  which  I  have  derived  from  these 
weeks  spent  in  your  society  and  thanking  you  for 
the  extremely  encouraging  attendance  with  which 
you  have  honoured  me  from  first  to  last.  To  the 
authorities  of  the  college,  as  well  as  to  many  citi- 
zens of  this  town,  I  have  to  express  my  indebtedness 
for  an  amount  of  kindness  and  courtesy  which  I 
can  never  forget,  and  which  will  always  make  my 
visit  to  this  country  one  of  the  pleasantest  of 
memories. 


THE   PREACHER   AS  A     THINKER.  263 

Let  US,  in  parting,  commend  each  other  to  the 
rrace  of  God  : 

O  God  our  Father,  the  infinite  Power,  the 
perfect  Wisdom  and  the  immortal  Love, 
in  Thy  hands  are  all  our  ways,  and  the 
success  of  our  purposes  proceeds  from 
Thee  alone.  Follow  with  Thy  blessing 
our  intercourse  together  and  the  work 
which  we  have  now  completed.  Bless  this 
University — its  president,  its  professors 
and  students.  May  knowledge  grow  in  it 
from  more  to  more,  and,  along  with  knowl- 
edge, reverence  and  love.  May  those 
especially  who  are  preparing  for  the  minis- 
try of  Thy  Son  be  filled  with  Thy  Spirit, 
and  in  due  time  may  they  prove  faithful 
stewards  of  the  mysteries  of  God.  Bless 
them  in  their  studies,  in  their  fellowship 
with  one  another,  and  in  their  efforts  to 
advance  Thy  kingdom.  We  commend 
each  other  affectionately  to  Thee  ;  be  our 
God  and  our  Guide  in  life  and  in  death, 
in  time  and  in  eternity.  For  Christ's  sake. 
Amen. 


APPENDIX. 
AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE 


APPENDIX. 

AN   ORDINATION   CHARGE.* 

1  SHOULD  like  to  connect  what  I  have  to  say 
with  a  text  of  Scripture,  which  you  may  remem- 
ber as  a  motto  for  tliis  occasion.  Take,  then,  that 
pastoral  exhortation  to  a  young  minister  in  i  Tim. 
iv.  i6:  "Take  heed  unto  thyself,  and  to  the 
doctrine  ;  continue  in  them  ;  for  in  doing  this  thou 
shalt  both  save  thyself  and  them  that  hear  thee." 

There  are  three  subjects  recommended  in  this 
text  to  one  in  your  position — Jirsf,  yourself ',  second, 
your  doctrine  ;  tJiird,  those  that  hear  you. 

I.  Take  heed  unto  thyself. — Perhaps  there  is  no 
profession  which  so  thoroughly  as  ours  tests  and 
reveals  what  is  in  a  man — the  stature  of  his  man- 
hood, the  mass  and  quality  of  his  character,  the 
poverty  or  richness  of  his  mind,  the  coldness  or 
warmth  of  his  spirituality.  These  all  come  out  in 
our  work,  and  become  known  to  our  congregation 
and  the  community  in  which  we  labour. 

*  Delivered  at  the  Ordination  of  the  Rev.  William  Agnew,  Gallatown, 
Kirkcaldy,  1879. 


268  APPENDIX. 


When  a  man  comes  into  a  neighbourhood,  as  you 
are  doing  now,  he  is  to  a  large  extent  an  unknown 
quantity  ;  and  it  is  very  touching  to  observe  the 
exaggeration  with  which  we  are  generally  looked 
on  at  first,  people  attributing  to  us  a  sort  of  indefi- 
nite largeness.  But  it  is  marvellous  how  soon  the 
measure  of  a  man  is  taken,  how  he  finds  his  level  in 
the  community,  and  people  know  whether  he  is  a 
large  or  a  petty  man,  whether  he  is  a  thinker  or 
not,  whether  he  is  a  deeply  religious  man  or  not. 
The  glamour  of  romance  passes  off,  and  everything 
is  seen  in  the  light  of  common  day. 

The  sooner  this  takes  place  the  better.  A  true 
man  docs  not  need  to  fear  it,  lie  is  what  he  is, 
and  nothing  else.  He  cannot  by  taking  thought 
add  one  cubit  to  his  stature.  Any  exaggeration  of 
his  image  in  the  minds  of  others  does  not  in  reality 
make  him  one  inch  bigger  than  he  is. 

It  seems  to  me  to  lie  at  the  very  root  of  a  right 
ministerial  life  to  be  possessed  with  this  idea — to 
get  quit  of  everything  like  pretence  and  untruthful- 
ness, to  wish  for  no  success  to  which  one  is  not  en- 
titled, and  to  look  upon  elevation  into  any  position 
for  which  one  is  unfit  as  a  pure  calamity. 

The  man's  self — the  very  thing  he  is,  standing 
with  his  bare  feet  on  the  bare  earth — this  is  the 
great  concern.     This  is  the  self  to  which  you  are  to 


AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE.  2G9 

take  heed — what  you  really  are,  what  you  are  grow- 
ing to,  what  you  may  yet  become. 

All  our  work  is  determined  by  this — the  spirit 
and  power  of  our  preaching,- the  quality  of  the  in- 
fluence we  exert,  and  the  tenor  of  our  walk  and 
conversation.  We  can  no  more  rise  above  our- 
selves than  water  can  rise  above  its  own  level.  We 
may,  indeed,  often  fail  to  do  ourselves  justice,  and 
sometimes  may  do  ourselves  more  than  justice. 
But  that  is  only  for  a  moment  i  the  total  impression 
made  by  ourselves  is  an  unmistakable  thing.  What 
is  in  us  must  come  out,  and  nothing  else.  All  we 
say  and  do  is  merely  the  expression  of  what  we  are. 

Evidently,  therefore,  there  can  be  nothing  so  im- 
portant as  carefully  to  watch  over  our  inner  life,  and 
see  that  it  be  large,  sweet  and  spiritual,  and  that  it 
be  growing. 

Yet  the  temptations  to  neglect  and  overlook  this 
and  turn  our  attention  in  other  directions  are  ter- 
ribly strong.  The  ministerial  life  is  a  very  outside 
life  ;  it  is  lived  in  the  glare  of  publicity  ;  it  is  always 
pouring  out.  We  are  continually  preaching,  ad- 
dressing meetings,  giving  private  counsel,  attend- 
ing public  gatherings,  going  from  home,  frequenting 
church  courts,  receiving  visits,  and  occupied  with 
details  of  every  kind.  We  live  in  a  time  when  all 
men  are  busy,  and  ministers  are  the  busiest  of  men. 


270  APPENDIX. 


From  Monday  morning  till  Sunday  night  the  bustle 
goes  on  continually. 

Our  life  is  in  danger  of  becoming  all  outside. 
We  are  called  upon  to  express  ourselves  before  con- 
viction has  time  to  ripen.  Our  spirits  get  too  hot 
and  unsettled  to  allow  the  dew  to  fall  on  them. 
We  are  compelled  to  speak  what  is  merely  the  rec- 
ollection of  conviction  which  we  had  some  time 
ago,  and  to  use  past  feelings  over  again.  Many  a 
day  you  will  feel  this;  you  will  long  with  your 
whole  heart  to  escape  away  somewhere  into  ob- 
scurity, and  be  able  to  keep  your  mouth  closed  for 
weeks.  .You  will  know  the  meaning  of  that  great 
text  for  ministers,  "  The  talk  of  the  lips  tendeth  only 
to  penury," — that  is,  it  shallows  the  spirit  within. 

This  is  what  we  have  to  fight  against.  The  peo- 
ple we  live  among  and  the  hundred  details  of  our 
calling  will  steal  away  our  inner  life  altogether,  if 
they  can.  And  then,  what  is  our  outer  life  worth? 
It  is  worth  nothing.  If  the  inner  life  get  thin  and 
shallow,  the  outer  life  must  become  a  perfunctory 
discharge  of  duties.  Our  preaching  will  be  empty, 
and  our  conversation  and  intercourse  unspiritual, 
unenriching  and  flavourless.  Wc  may  please  our 
people  for  a  time  by  doing  all  they  desire  and 
being  at  everybody's  call ;  but  they  will  turn  round 
on  us  in  disappointment  and  anger  in  the  day  when, 


A  A'  ORDINATION  CHARGE.  271 

by  living  merely  the  outer  life,  we  have  become 
empty,  shallow  and  unprofitable. 

Take  heed  to  thyself!  If  we  grow  strong  and 
large  inwardly,  our  people  will  reap  the  fruit  of  it 
indue  time:  our  preaching  will  have  sap  and  power 
and  unction;  and  our  intercourse  will  have  about 
itihe  breath  of  another  world. 

vWe  must  ^ViA  time  for  reading,  study,  meditation 
and  prayer.  We  should  at  least  insist  on  having  a 
large  forenoon,  up,  say,  to  two  o'clock  every  day, 
clear  of  interruptions.  These  hours  of  quietness 
are  our  real  life!  '  It  is  these  that  make  the  minis- 
terial life  a  grand  life.  When  we  are  shut  in  alone, 
and,  the  spirit  having  been  silenced  and  collected 
by  prayer,  the  mind  gets  slowly  down  into  the 
heart  of  a  text,  like  a  bee  in  a  flower,  it  is  like 
heaven  upon  earth;  it  is  as  if  the  soul  were  bathing 
itself  in  morning  dews  ;  the  dust  and  fret  are  washed 
off,  and  the  noises  recede  into  the  distance  ;  peace 
comes ;  we  move  aloft  in  another  world — the  world 
of  ideas  arid  realities ;  the  mind  mounts  joyfully 
from  one  height  to  another ;  it  sees  the  common 
world  far  beneath,  yet  clearly,  in  its  true  ineaning 
and  size  and  relations  to  other  worlds.  And  then 
one  comes  down  on  Sabbath,  to  speak  to  the  peo- 
ple, calm,  strong  and  clear,  like  Moses  from  the 
mount,  and  with  a  true  Divine  message. 


27-2  APPRiYDlX. 

In  so  doini^,  my  dear  brother,  thou  shalt  save 
thyself.  Lose  your  inner  life,  and  you  lose  yourself, 
sure  enough  ;  for  that  is  yourself.  You  will  often 
have  to  tell  your  people  that  salvation  is  not  the 
one  act  of  conversion,  nor  the  one  act  of  passing 
through  the  gate  of  heaven  at  last ;  but  the  renewal, 
the  sanctification,  the  growth,  into  large  and  sym- 
metrical stature,  of  the  whole  character.  Tell  that 
to  yourself  often  too.  We  take  it  for  granted  that 
you  are  a  regenerated  man,  or  we  would  not  have 
ordained  you  to  be  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  to-day. 
But  it  is  possible  for  a  man  to  be  regenerate  and 
to  be  a  minister,  and  yet  to  remain  very  w^orldly, 
shallow,  undeveloped  and  unsanctified.  We  who 
are  your  brethren  in  the  ministry  could  tell  sad  his- 
tories in  illustration  of.  this  out  of  our  own  inner 
life.  We  could  tell  you  how,  in  keeping  the  vine- 
yard of  others,  we  have  often  neglected  our  own  ; 
and  how  now,  at  the  end  of  years  of  ministerial 
activity  and  incessant  toil,  we  turn  round  and 
look  with  dismay  at  our  shallow  characters,  our 
vmenriched  minds,  and  our  lack  of  spirituality  and 
Christlikeness.  O  brother !  take  heed  to  thyself — 
save  thyself! 

II.  Take  heed  to  the  Doctrine. — A  very  little  ex- 
perience of  preaching  will   convince  you  that  in  re- 


JA^  ORDINATION   CHARGE.  273 

lation  to  the  truth  which  you  have  to  minister 
week  by  week  to  your  people  you  will  have  to  sus- 
tain a  double  character — that  of  an  interpreter  of 
Scripture  and  that  of  a  prophet. 

Let  me  first  say  something  of  the  former.  With 
whatever  high-flown  notions  a  man  may  begin  his 
ministry,  yet,  if  he  is  to  stay  for  years  in  a  place  and 
keep  up  a  fresh  kind  of  preaching  and  build  up  a 
congregation,  delivering  such  discourses  as  Scotch- 
men like  to  hear,  he  will  find  that  he  must  heartily 
accept  the  role  of  an  interpreter  of  Scripture,  and 
lean  on  the  Bible  as  his  great  support. 
C  This  is  your  work ;  the  Book  is  put  into  your 
hands  to-day,  that  you  may  unfold  its  contents  to 
your  people,  conveying  them  into  their  minds  by  all 
possible  avenues  and  applying  them  to  all  parts  of 
their  daily  life. 

It  is  a  grand  task.  I  cannot  help  congratulating 
you  on  being  ordained  to  the  ministry  to-day,  for 
this  above  everything,  that  the  Bible  is  henceforth 
to  be  continually  in  your  hands ;  that  the  study  of 
it  is  to  be  the  work  of  your  life ;  that  you  are  to  be 
continually  sinking  and  bathing  your  mind  in  its 
truths  ;  and  that  you  are  to  have  the  pleasure  of 
bringing  forth  what  you  have  discovered  in  it  to  feed 
the  minds  of  men.  The  ministerial  profession  is  to 
be  envied  more  for  this  than  anything  else.   I  promise 


274  APPENDIX. 


you  that,  if  you  be  true  to  it,  this  Book  will  become 
dearer  to  you  every  day  ;  it  will  enrich  every  part  of 
your  nature;  you  will  become  more  and  more  con- 
vinced that  it  is  the  Word  of  God  and  contains  the 
only  remedy  for  the  woes  of  man. 

But  be  true  to  it !  The  Bible  will  be  what  I  have 
said  to  you  only  if  you  go  deep  into  it.  If  you  keep 
to  the  surface,  you  will  weary  of  it.  There  are  some 
ministers  who  begin  their  ministry  with  a  certain 
quantity  of  religious  doctrine  in  their  mind,  and 
what  they  do  all  their  life  afterwards  is  to  pick  out 
texts  and  make  them  into  vessels  to  hold  so  much 
of  it.  The  vessels  are  of  different  shapes  and  sizes, 
but  they  are  all  filled  with  the  same  thing;  and  oh  ! 
it  is  poor  stuff,  however  orthodox  and  evangelical  it 
may  seem. 

To  become  a  dearly  loved  friend  and  an  endless 
source  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  delight,  the  Bible 
must  be  thoroughly  studied.  We  must  not  pour  our 
ideas  into  it,  but  apply  our  minds  to  it  and  faithfully 
receive  the  impressions  which  it  makes  on  them. 
One  learns  thus  to  trust  the  Bible  as  an  inexhaustible 
resource  and  lean  back  upon  it  with  all  one's  might. 
It  is  only  such  preaching,  enriching  itself  out  of  the 
wealth  of  the  Bible  and  getting  from  it  freshness, 
variety  and  power,  that  can  build  up  a  congregation 
and  satisfy  the  minds  of  really  living  Christians. 


AN  ORDINATION   CHARGE.  275 

The  intellectual  demand  on  the  pulpit  is  rapidly 
rising.  I  should  like  to  draw  your  earnest  attention 
to  a  revolution  which  is  ;>ilently  taking  place  in  Scot- 
land, but  is  receiving  from  very  few  the  notice  which 
it  deserves.  I  refer  to  the  changes  that  are  being 
made  by  the  new  system  of  national  education.  No 
one  can  have  travelled  much  for  several  years  past 
through  this  part  of  the  island  without  his  attention 
being  attracted  by  the  new  and  imposing  school 
buildings  rising  in  almost  every  parish.  These  are 
the  index  of  a  revolution  ;  for  inside,  in  their  man- 
agement and  in  the  efficiency  of  the  education,  there 
has  also  been  an  immense  change.  I  venture  to  say 
that  nothing  which  has  taken  place  in  Scotland  this 
century — and  I  am  remembering  both  the  Reform 
Bill  and  the  Disruption — will  be  found  to  have  been 
of  more  importance.  There  will  be  a  far  more  ed- 
ucated Scotland  to  preach  to  in  a  short  time,  which 
will  demand  of  the  ministry  a  high  intellectual 
standard.  It  is  a  just  demand.  Our  people  should 
go  away  from  the  church  feeling  that  they  have  re- 
ceived new  and  interesting  information,  that  their 
intellects  have  been  illuminated  by  fresh  and  great 
ideas,  and  that  to  hear  their  minister  regularly  is  a 
liberal  education.  * 

Nothing  will  meet  this  demand  except  thorough 
study  of  Scripture  by  minds  equipped  with  all  the 


276  APPENDIX. 


technical  helps,  as  well  as  enriched  by  the  constant 
reading  of  the  best  literature,  both  on  our  own  and 
kindred  subjects.  One  of  our  hymns  says  that  the 
Bible  "  gives  a  light  to  every  age  ;  it  gives,  but  bor- 
rows none."  Nothing  could  be  more  untrue.  The 
Bible  borrows  light  from  every  age  and  from  every 
department  of  human  knowledge.  Whatever  espe- 
cially makes  us  acquainted  with  the  mysterious 
depths  of  human  nature  is  deserving  of  our  atten- 
tion. The  Bible  and  human  nature  call  to  each 
other  like  deep  unto  deep.  Every  addition  to  our 
knowledge  of  man  will  be  a  new  key  to  open  the 
secrets  of  the  Word  ;  and  the  deeper  you  go  in  your 
preaching  into  the  mysteries  of  the  Word,  the  more 
subtle  and  powerful  will  be  the  springs  you  touch  in 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  your  hearers. 

But  preparation  of  this  sort  for  the  pulpit  is  not 
easy.  It  requires  time,  self-conquest  and  hard  work. 
Perhaps  the  greatest  ministerial  temptation  is  idle- 
ness in  study — not  in  going  about  and  doing  some- 
thing, but  in  finding  and  rightly  using  precious 
hours  in  one's  library,  avoiding  reverie  and  light  or 
desultory  reading,  and  sticking  hard  and  fast  to  the 
Sabbath  work.  I,  for  one,  must  confess  that  I  have 
had,  and  still  have,  a  terrible  battle  to  fight  for  this. 
No  men  have  their  time  so  much  at  their  own  dis- 
posal as  we.     I   often  wish  we  had  regular  office- 


AA^  ORDINATION   CHARGE.  2V7 

hours,  like  business  men  ;  but  even  that  would  not 
remedy  the  evil,  for  every  man  shut  up  alone  in  a 
study  is  not  studying.  Nothing  can  remedy  it  but 
faithfulness  to  duty  and  love  of  work. 

You  will  find  it  necessary  to  be  hard  at  it  from 
Tuesday  morning  to  Saturdax'  night.  If  )'ou  lecture, 
as  I  trust  you  will — for  it  brings  one,  far  more  than 
sermonising,  into  contact  with  Scripture — you  will 
know  your  subject  at  once,  and  be  able  to  begin  to 
read  on  it.  The  text  of  the  other  discourse  should  be 
got  by  the  middle  of  the  week  at  latest,  and  the  more 
elaborate  of  the  two  finished  on  Friday.  This  makes 
a  hard  week ;  but  it  has  its  reward.  There  are  few 
moods  more  splendid  than  a  preacher's  when,  after  a 
hard  week's  work,  during  which  his  mind  has  been 
incessantly  active  on  the  truth  of  God  and  his  spirit 
exalted  by  communion  with  the  Divine  Spirit,  he 
appears  before  his  congregation  on  Sabbath,  knowing 
he  has  an  honestly  gotten  message  to  lavish  on  them  ; 
just  as  there  can  be  no  coward  and  craven  more 
abject  than  a  minister  with  any  conscience  who 
appears  in  the  pulpit  after  an  idle,  dishonest  week, 
to  cheat  his  congregation  with  a  diet  of  fragments 
seasoned  with  counterfeit  fervour. 

But,  besides  being  an   interpreter  of  Scripture,  a 

true  minister  fills  the  still  higher  position  of  a  prophet. 

This    congregation    has   asked  you    to    become   its 
19 


2V8  APPENDIX. 


spiritual  overseer.  But  a  minister  is  no  minister 
unless  he  come  to  his  sphere  of  labour  under  a  far 
higher  sanction — unless  he  be  sent  from  God,  with  a 
message  in  his  heart  which  he  is  burning  to  pour  forth 
upon  men.  An  apostle  (that  is,  a  messenger  sent 
from  God)  and  a  prophet  (that  is,  a  man  whose  lips 
are  impatient  to  speak  the  Divine  message  which  his 
heart  is  full  of)  every  true  minister  must  be.  I  trust 
you  have  such  a  message,  the  substance  of  which  you 
could  at  this  moment,  if  called  upon,  speak  out  in 
very  few  words.  There  is  something  wrong  if  from  a 
man's  preaching  his  hearers  do  not  gather  by  degrees 
a  scheme  of  doctrine — a  message  which  the  plainest 
of  them  could  give  account  of. 

What  this  message  should  be,  there  exists  no  doubt 
at  all  in  the  Church  of  which  you  have  to-day  been 
ordained  a  minister.  It  can  be  nothing  else  than  the 
evangelical  scheme,  as  it  has  been  understood  and 
expounded  by  the  greatest  and  most  godly  minds  in 
all  generations  of  the  Church  and  preached  with 
fresh  power  in  this  country  since  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century.  It  has  proved  itself  the  power  of 
God,  to  the  revival  of  the  Church  and  the  conversion 
of  souls,  wherever  it  has  been  faithfully  proclaimed  ; 
and  it  is  a  great  trust  which  is  committed  to  your 
hands  to-day  to  be  one  of  its  heralds  and  conser- 
vators. 


AN  ORDINATION   CHARGE.  279 


Not  that  we  in  this  generation  are  to  pledge  our- 
selves to  preach  nothing  except  what  was  preached 
last  generation.  That  would  be  a  poor  way  of  follow- 
ing in  the  footsteps  of  men  who  thought  so  independ- 
ently and  so  faithfully  fulfilled  their  own  task.  The 
area  of  topics  introduced  in  the  pulpit  is  widening,  I 
think.  Why  should  it  not  ?  The  Bible  is  far  greater 
and  wider  than  any  school  or  any  generation  ;  and 
we  will  fearlessly  commit  ourselves  to  it  and  go 
wherever  it  carries  us,  even  though  it  should  be  far 
beyond  the  range  of  topics  within  which  we  are 
expected  to  confine  ourselves.  Your  congregation 
will  put  one  utterance  side  by  side  with  another ;  and, 
if  you  are  a  truly  evangelical  man,  there  will  be  no 
fear  of  their  mistaking  your  standpoint.  There  is  no 
kind  of  preaching  so  wearisome  and  unprofitable  as 
an  anxious,  constrained  and  formal  repetition  of  the 
most  prominent  points  of  evangelical  doctrine.  The 
only  cure  for  this  is  to  keep  in  close  contact  with  both 
human  nature  and  the  Bible,  and  be  absolutely  faith- 
ful to  the  impressions  which  they  make. 

Yet  take  heed  that  your  doctrine  be  such  as  will 
save  them  that  hear  you.  What  saving  doctrine  is 
has  been  determined  in  this  land  by  a  grand  experi- 
ment ;  and  it  is  only  faithfulness  to  the  history  of 
Scotland,  as  well  as  to  God  and  your  people,  to 
make  it  the  sum  and  substance  and  the  very  breath 


280  APPENDIX. 


of  life  for  all  you  preaching.  Our  calling  is  emphat- 
ically "  the  ministry  of  reconciliation  ;  to  wit,  that 
God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto  Him- 
self, not  imputing  their  trespasses  unto  them  ;  and 
hath  committed  unto  us  the  word  of  reconciliation. 
Nc^W-  then  we  are  ambassadors  for  Christ,  as  though 
God  did  beseech  you  by  us;  we  pray  you  in 
Christ's  stead,  be  ye  reconciled  to  God.  For  He 
hath  made  Him  to  be  sin  for  us  who  knew  no  sin; 
that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God  in 
Him."  This  is  the  glorious  message  of  the  Gos- 
pel, which  alone  can  meet  the  deep  spiritual  wants 
of  men. 

Preach  it  out  of  a  living  experience.  Bunyan,  in 
his  autobiography,  gives  an  account  of  his  own 
preaching,  telling  how,  for  the  first  two  years  of  his 
ministry,  he  dwelt  continually  on  the  terrors  of  the 
law,  because  he  was  then  quailing  beneath  them 
himself;  how  for  the  next  two  years  he  discoursed 
chiefly  on  Christ  in  his  offices,  because  he  was  then 
enjoying  the  comfort  of  these  doctrines ;  and  how, 
for  a  third  couple  of  years,  the  mystery  of  union  to 
Christ  was  the  centre  both  of  his  preaching  and  his 
experience;  and  so  on.  That  appears  to  me  the 
very  model  of  a  true  ministry — to  be  always  preach- 
ing the  truth  one  is  experiencing  oneself  at  the 
time,  and  so   giving  it   out  fresh,  like   a  discovery 


AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE.  281 

just  made  ;  while  at  the  same  time  the  centre  of 
gravity,  so  to  speak,  of  one's  doctrine  is  constantly 
in  motion,  passing  from  one  section  of  the  sphere  of 
evangelical  truth  to  another,  till  it  has  in  succession 
passed  through  them  all. 

III.  Take  heed  to  tJicm  that  hear  you. — I  alrnost 
envy  you  the  new  joy  that  will  fill  your  heart  soon, 
when  you  fairly  get  connected  with  your  congrega- 
tion. The  first  love  of  a  minister  for  his  own  flock 
is  as  original  and  peculiar  a  blossom  of  the  heart  as 
any  other  that  could  be  named.  And  the  bond  that 
unites  him  to  those  whom  he  has  been  the  means  of 
converting  or  raising  to  higher  levels  of  life  is  one 
of  the  tenderest  in  existence. 

You  have  come  to  a  hearty  people,  who  will  be 
quite  disposed  to  put  a  good  construction  on  all  you 
do.  This  is  a  busy  community,  that  appreciates  a 
man  who  works  hard.  If  you  do  your  work  faith- 
fully and  preach  with  the  heart  and  the  head,  they 
will  come  to  hear  you.  It  is  wonderful  how  lenient 
those  who  hear  us  are.  You  will  wonder,  I  daresay, 
some  Sabbaths,  that  they  sit  to  hear  you  at  all,  or 
that,  having  heard  you,  they  ever  come  back  again. 
But,  if  a  man  is  really  true,  he  is  not  condemned  for 
a  single  poor  sermon.  Honesty  and  thorough  work 
and  good  thinking  are  not  so  easily  found  in  the 


282  APPENDIX. 


world  that  a  man  who  generally  exhibits  them  can 
be  neglected.  If  we  fail,  it  must  surely  generally 
be  our  own  fault. 

The  more  we  put  ourselves  on  a  level  with  the 
people  the  better.  We  stoop  to  conquer.  It  is 
better  to  feel  that  we  belong  to  the  congregation 
than  that  it  belongs  to  us.  I  like  to  think  of  the 
minister  as  only  one  of  the  congregation  set  apart 
by  the  rest  for  a  particular  purpose.  A  congrega- 
tion is  a  number  of  people  associated  for  their  moral 
and  spiritual  improvement.  And  they  say  to  one 
of  their  number,  Look,  brother,  we  are  busy  with 
our  daily  toils  and  confused  with  domestic  and 
worldly  cares ;  w^e  live  in  confusion  and  darkness  ; 
but  we  eagerly  long  for  peace  and  light  to  cheer  and 
illuminate  our  life  ;  and  w^e  have  heard  there  is  a 
land  where  these  are  to  be  found — a  land  of  repose 
and  joy,  full  of  thoughts  that  breathe  and  words 
that  burn  :  but  we  cannot  go  thither  ourselves  ;  we 
are  too  embroiled  in  daily  cares :  come,  we  will 
elect  you,  and  set  you  free  from  our  toils,  and  you 
shall  go  thither  for  us,  and  week  by  week  trade 
with  that  land  and  bring  us  its  treasures  and  its 
spoils.  Oh,  woe  to  him  who  accepts  this  election, 
and  yet,  failing  through  idleness  to  carry  on  the 
noble  merchandise,  appears  week  by  week  empty- 
handed  or  with  merely  counterfeit  treasure  in  his 


AN  ORDINATION  CHARGE.  283 

hands!  Woe  to  him,  too,  if,  going  to  that  land,  he 
forgets  those  who  sent  him  and  spends  his  time 
there  in  selfish  enjoyment  of  the  delights  of  knowl- 
edge !  Woe  to  him  if  he  does  not  week  by  week 
return  laden,  and  ever  more  richly  laden,  and  say- 
ing, Yes,  brothers,  I  have  been  to  that  land  ;  and  it 
is  a  land  of  light  and  peace  and  nobleness:  but  I 
have  never  forgotten  you  and  your  needs  and  the 
dear  bonds  of  brotherhood ;  and  look,  I  have  brought 
back  this,  and  this,  and  this  :  take  it  to  gladden  and 
purify  your  life ! 

I  esteem  it  one  of  the  chief  rewards  of  our  pro- 
fession, that  it  makes  us  respect  our  fellow-men.  It 
makes  us  continuallythinkof  even  the  most  degraded 
of  them  as  immortal  souls,  with  magnificent  unde- 
veloped possibilities  in  them — as  possible  sons  of 
God,  and  brethren  of  Christ,  and  heirs  of  heaven. 
Some  men,  by  their  profession,  are  continually 
tempted  to  take  low  views  of  human  nature.  But 
we  are  forced  to  think  worthily  of  it.  A  minister 
is  no  minister  who  does  not  see  wonder  in  the  child 
in  the  cradle  and  in  the  peasant  in  the  field — rela- 
tions with  all  time  behind  and  before,  and  all  eter- 
nity above  and  beneath.  Not  but  that  we  see  the 
seamy  side  too — the  depths  as  well  as  the  heights. 
We  get  glimpses  of  the  awful  sin  of  the  heart;  we 
are  made  to  feel  the  force  of  corrupt  nature's  mere 


284  APPENDIX. 


inert  resistance  to  good  influences;  we  have  to  feel      ** 
the  pain  of  the  slowness  of  the  movement  of  gooc?- 
ness,  as   perhaps  no   other  men   do.  (  Yet  love  and 
undying  faith  in  the  value  of  the  soul  and  hope  for 
all  men  are  the  mainsprings  of  our  activity. 

For  the  end  we  always  aim  at  is  to  save  those  who 
hear  us.,'  Think  what  that  is!  What  a  magnificent 
life  work  !  It  is  to  fight  against  sin,  to  destroy  the 
works  of  the  devil,  to  make  human  souls  gentle, 
noble  and  godlike,  to  help  on  the  progress  of  the 
world,  to  sow  the  seed  of  the  future,  to  prepare  the 
population  of  heaven,  to  be  fellow-sufferers  and 
fellow-workers  with  Christ,  and  to  glorify  God. 

This  is  your  work;  and  the  only  true  measure  of 
ministerial  success  is  how  many  souls  you  save — 
save  in  every  sense — in  the  sense  of  regeneration, 
and  sanctification  and  redemption. (^. 


THE   END. 


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